


Cuddle & Monster

by Taxouck



Series: Tales of the Mad God [2]
Category: Furry (Fandom), Monster Girls | Monster Boys, Original Work
Genre: Animal Transformation, Autism Spectrum, Deities, Enemies to Friends, F/F, Furry, Gen, Gender Change, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Queerplatonic Relationships, Species Dysphoria, Temporary Character Death, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel, Transformation, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 28,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taxouck/pseuds/Taxouck
Summary: After a malevolent spell intended to turn her into an animal goes awry, Cherry finds herself stuck as a plush toy. She now has to cooperate with the warlock that tried to transform her in the first place as her latent magic goes out of control and starts to change the warlock in unexpected ways.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Series: Tales of the Mad God [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573114
Comments: 35
Kudos: 19





	1. Sent on a doomed quest

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to use the auto-import thing Ao3 has and I learned the auto-import thing is not to be trusted. I had to scramble to fix everything as quickly as I could to get this story into a presentable shape. Please don't hesitate to report any weirdness in the comments!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Temporary death, Animal TF, Inanimate TF, (accidental) Non-Consensual TF & Mind Changes
> 
> Come discuss this story on my discord server! http://discord.gg/VDVMVrc
> 
> Cover art by DoodlerBee! https://linktr.ee/DoodlerBee

My name is Cherry. I like to think of myself as a pretty normal farm girl, if a bit on the meek side... which makes me wonder how I even got drafted. You’d think they would do exceptions to the second child rule for basket cases like mine. One week after my twenty-secondth birthday, They’ve put a helmet on my head, a lance in my hands, and apparently that’s enough to be called a soldier.

The troop I’m in has been tasked with taking down an evil warlock who has taken residence in an abandoned guard tower in the middle of a swamp. Apparently the swamp used to be a town centuries ago, but the tower is all that survived whatever happened that turned the surroundings into this desolate place. The briefing was so incomplete I don’t even know what someone would be doing in such a desolate location.

I’m shaking out of my waterlogged boots. We’re not the first expedition sent to take the warlock down, that at least I know, but none of them has come back. We probably won’t either, honestly. On the way there, we keep being chased by animals; folks left and right have bite and claw marks popping up with each new attack. The strange part is how these animals aren’t swamp dwellers. We’ve seen does and elephants and tarantulas, so many things, more different species than I could count. Did the warlock bring them here? 

I hear the troop leader and the second in command whisper to each other about something. 

I’m worried. I want to go back to the village and to my family.

The tower menacingly appears in our sight through the foliage. I gulp. The troop is coerced onwards. 

I look up at the top of the spire, and I think I see something glint for a second. I stop in my steps to focus a bit more on what I am seeing… Until the glint becomes a spark, and the spark flies straight onto one of the other conscripts.

It’s only at the grunt of the affected soldier that the others stop. Had they not seen the light? Everyone’s eyes are on the soldier groaning in pain. In the space of a blink, he grows feathers and shrinks down, and it’s a duck we see flying out of his discarded clothes and into the forest. 

I scream in panic; I’m not the only one who does. Immediately the situation devolves into chaos.

“ATTAAACK!” shouts the leader, prompting us forward in a frantic charge. We scatter out of the dirty swamp water and reach the very small hill upon which the tower sits. 

I see more lights appearing atop the tower before they suddenly start raining down on us. None of the other soldiers see them come.

I see them turn into all kinds of animals, a squid, an owl, a mouse… which immediately gets snatched by the bird before it flies into the trees - gods, do they not even remember being human!? 

In just one assault half of our forces have been transformed, including the second in command. Our leader forces us to press on with another shout. Only a few of us still continue the assault, the rest flee...

But even they aren’t spared. In fact, they seem to be targeted first, leaving only those of us who haven’t run away yet. A spell goes straight for me and I dodge it; it hits the ground and disperses itself. The others still seem to be unable to see them. Why? They can’t dodge what to them seem to be surprise attacks. More people get hit and turn.

We’re down to five now, still sprinting like mad men aiming for the door. Adrenaline is the only thing left carrying me. I look up, and see the warlock floating above us. His spindly head is fully shaved, save for a goatee on his chin. His purple robes billow with an unnatural, green wind that carries him down to us. But worse of all is his expression, this look of utter contempt. It buries itself deep into my brain. I’m terrified.

The others look up. Our leader draws his bow, only to receive a mean-looking purple light javelin to his chest. A moment later, there’s a hole in his torso where the spell was. He crumbles to his knees, and the four of us remaining flee in unison, abandoning our weapons behind with fear-filled screams.

I just take the time to look backwards, and spot the warlock flinging another flurry of spells at us. This is it. I wouldn’t be able to dodge them all. But I look to my left, and… In the first act of bravery in my entire life, likely motivated by my feeling lost one way or the other, I push the soldier next to me out of the way. I get just enough time before being hit by one of the lights to see him continue his run into the forest, accompanied by the vulture and the husky that were the last soldiers. At least one person will know what happened, will be able to tell our families.

Pain covers my entire being in the space of an instant.

“I don’t want to die,” I tell myself. “I don’t want to be an animal, I’m scared!” The world feels slowed to a crawl, but I know it’s just an illusion from adrenaline. This is all just happening in a fraction of a second.

The bubbling, blue magic in my chest hurts. I feel fur growing all over me. A tail sprouts on my back. My fingers retract into paw pads.

My short life flashes before my eyes. My mind likens this situation to that time when I was seven and narrowly avoided being run over by a carriage. Weeks after, the anxiety and the nightmares still wouldn’t stop… Until my dad gifted me Henrietta. She was a hippopotamus plushie I carried everywhere with me until I was twelve, and the only temporary abatement I ever had from my cowardliness.

The memory creates a pit of warmth in the middle of the panic. All my thoughts feel magnetized to it, my whole being even. I feel the magic go haywire before I see it happen. My increasingly paw-like hands come undone first, then the rest of my body follows suit.


	2. Immobile Flailing

I wake up with my eyes already fully open. I try to look around, but I can’t. My whole body feels locked in place, my arms and legs stiffly pointing forward. I’m limited to what I can immediately see - a circular room with walls made of stone. Shelves filled with books and strange items. I think I’m sitting on a table…? Why? How? In my peripheral vision I see things surrounding me, papers covered in scrawlings, complex equipment and metal tools.

I can feel I still have a tail, as unmoving as the rest of me.

Am I in the warlock’s tower?

I’m scared. I’m so scared. I want to scream, but my lips remain sealed.

Somehow, I scream anyway. My mind cries out and sobs loudly as I panic again. I see a filament of blue magic escape my tightly shut mouth and seep straight up through the ceiling.

I can feel it reach into something? And grab tightly, oh so tightly. I’m so confused by everything. Why am I doing magic, how am I doing it, why am I still unmoving?

I panic even further as I hear, then see, the warlock hurtling down a flight of stairs with a scowl. He looks around as if searching for something, and his gaze stops on me. My erratic shouting gets caught in my throat as my mind is trying to tell my body to hyperventilate, but it can’t. It can’t even breathe.

“By the higher beings, is this thing… alive?” he says, raising an eyebrow and lowering his face to my level. Oh my god, he’s gigantic. No - no, I’ve shrunk. Severely. 

My internal screams resume reflexively. He grimaces and holds a hand against his forehead.

His other hand recoils before banging on the table. “WILL YOU BE QUIET FOR A MINUTE!?” I stop again. His face shows me contempt and anger.

His heavy breathing is the only sound in the room, silently accompanied by the sobs I would make if I could talk.

He picks me up by my arm and straightens his back, studying me from various angles. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror that was positioned behind where I was set.

...I’m a toy? A doll. A plushie. The cloth that is my skin is white with black stripes, my wheat-colored hair is still atop my head, only made of felt now. I think my eyes are beads, I’m not sure, I didn’t get the time to catch more details. “What happened to me…” I whimper to myself.

“Ah, so it can do more than just wail.” He grabs my other arm, making me face him, then starts to pull on them.

“Ow, ow ow ow ow!” The sensation of pain is downright bizarre now. I can feel his thumbs apply way too strong pressure on my hands, and that part causes no ache, but the pulling… It hurts so much.

He lets go of one of my arms to grab a pencil, jotting down notes on a loose paper. “What an odd thing. It can feel pain despite having no nervous system.” He drops the pen again before lifting me to his eyes. “What _are_ you?”

“I don’t, I don’t, ...” I’m so confused and lost, I don’t know how he’s hearing my thoughts, I don’t know how to reply, but he scares me so much I’m compelled to anyway. “My name is Cherry, I, you hit me with your spell and- and I was scared, I was turning into an animal and I panicked and thought about my childhood stuffed toy, then the spell, it changed color…”

He adjusts his hand to hold me by my torso. “Magic is not something that is visible. Not naturally.”

I blurt out a reply immediately. “But I could! I could see it, I swear! I dodged the lights, until, until I couldn’t, and -”

He lifts up his hand to stop me and drops me back on the table, turning away. “What your tale would require you to have done is to hijack my spell. Not even a mage with a hundred years’ experience could do it in half a second. I will not waste my time on an ex-human with a failing memory.” 

“I’m scared… I wanna go home…” I mutter, my voice tinted in dread.

“And I do not care. Now stop your little telepathy trick. I have work to do.” He pauses before turning back to grab some tools.

The fear is mercifully replaced by confusion. At this point, I appreciate it. “...What?”

“I do hope you are smart enough to have realised you are not speaking with your mouth right now.” He crosses his arms, looking down at me. “So remove yourself from my mind at once.”

“I don’t… I don’t know how I did that… I don’t know magic, I swear...” I reply with an honest, pleading tone. I’m just a woman. Just a girl, I’ve never been given any education in magic.

“Well, if you desire to _lie_ your way out of this situation, then you would better be quiet. I will not hesitate to open you up and study your corpse if you decide to become a grating presence.” And with that ominous threat, he climbs back up the stairs, leaving me metaphorically shaking.

What’s gonna happen to me now…?


	3. A connection too powerful

I manage to stay silent for a few hours before the isolation becomes maddening. I’m still as immobile. Still as terrified. I have no eyelids with which to blink, but no eyeballs to keep from drying up. No muscles with which to move, but no ache from holding the sitting position I am in, my arms opened like I’m inviting someone for a hug.

...I could really use a hug right now, in fact.

I wish I could just turn around and look at myself in the mirror.

I hesitate for a moment to call the warlock again. I’m so scared. His threat is still heavy on my mind. I can hear his footsteps in the room just above me as he seems to be walking sporadically, doing who knows what.

The thread of magic coming out of my mouth is still apparently connected to him. I mentally try to tug on it, and in fact actually see it react and tense, but it refuses to budge. It’s as if it’s stuck.

...The footsteps stop.

Oh no.

Did he feel that?

I hear him move towards the staircase. No no no no no I’m so scared. He’s going to tear me apart. He’s going to pull my limbs until they rip.

The expression he wears when I see him walk down the stairs is, mercifully, only one of confusion. He eyes me cautiously as he approaches. “Did you… do something?”

I throw myself into a barrage of excuses. “I-I didn’t mean to! I swear I was only trying to remove it! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

He frowns. “I knew it, dirty liar. You can remove it. Well then, you would better do so immediately.”

I try again, tugging on it with all the force of my mind. The blue magic thread resists at first, before seemingly seeping out of him… along with a dark red thing it seems embedded into. The warlock shouts in pain and I suddenly let go, the magic settling back into him.

He clutches at his abdomen, where the thread pulled, breathing heavily. “What…” he mutters. “What. By the higher beings… How dare you?”

“What did I do!?” I ask in a panic.

“You have tangled your magic in my lifestream, you absolute dolt!” He stomps over to me, snatching me off the table. “Cretin!! Buffoon!!!” he screams, throwing spittle in my face.

I’m so terrified, I start crying again.

He grits his teeth and lifts me up above his head, reeling his arm to throw me on the ground.

Survival instincts take over. “NOOO!” I scream as he swings his arm down. I see the magic thread turn from blue to pink, I do not know why… But the moment his hand comes down, he stops abruptly, not actually letting go of me. My metaphorical heart beats out of my chest.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, standing back straight again, sweat trickling on his forehead. The magic turns back to blue.

“...What kind of monster are you?” he asks in between huffs.

I’m scared again.

“How did you do that?” he continues, lifting me up to about his shoulder level, looking down on me with a concerned expression.

“What did I do? I’m sorry! If I’ve done anything, I didn’t mean to!” I tell him with a panicky tone.

He drops me back down on the table a bit too recklessly. I get turned around and fall on my side, and he swiftly walks out of the room.

I’m still just as confused. I don’t know what I did.

But I let the feelings recede for now. Because in this position, I am directly facing the mirror.

As I saw before, my hair is still there in the form of felt, cutely framing my changed face. My eyes have become two black beads embedded into my fabric, and my nose is a small, pink triangle, underneath which black thread is stitched in the shape of a feline’s mouth. Two circular white ears are topping my head.

My whole body is white with black stripes. At the bottom of my stumpy limbs, small paw pads appear to be sewn on.

Weirdly enough, the scrappy red armor I’d been wearing is still on me, only refitted as fabric and to my proportions. No sign of my helmet, but the chestpiece is there, complete with its shoulder pads.

...So this is me? The current me. Until I can find a way to turn back, if there is even one.

This will take some getting used to.


	4. Tangled

It is about twenty minutes later when I hear the warlock come back. He drops off something heavy next to me on the table, the sound of pages flipping tells me it’s a book.

He seems frantic. He grabs me suddenly, squeezing me in his tight grip. I yelp in surprise before realising it doesn’t hurt like being pulled on did. “What are you doing?” I ask with a concerned tone I find myself surprised to use.

He doesn’t reply, only rotating me around in his hand every now and then, studying me, then turning his attention back on the book. This continues for a while before he drops me back down on the table and I hear him shuffle through his tools.

He turns me around and pulls my armor off in one swift motion, right before I see him holding a scalpel that he hovers over my abdomen. Another of my numerous screams escapes my mind. “No! Please, don’t! Don’t hurt me!!! Please!”

I see the magic connecting us change hue towards pink again, but I’m scared to anger him further, and keep it contained as much as I can. He frowns and groans. “Get… Out of my mind… I am trying to understand what... by the powers above... is the situation you have tangled us in, fool.”

“Just please don’t hurt me!” I beg. “Anything! I’ll help you with anything, but please…!”

He seems to consider it for a moment before he turns me on my side, and instead cuts me with the scalpel where a seam already was. Wait, I have seams? “There. Less pain here, I believe. Now be quiet.” I don’t protest as he plunges a finger inside, then another, and grabs out a part of my filling, apparently fluffy cotton. He squishes it between his index and thumb. It… tickles. 

I see little specks of blue magic crawl all over it, like disturbed ants in a mound. Wait, if it’s not normal that I can see magic, should I tell him? ...Or should I even trust him? I stay silent.

“I do not get it… If it is just normal cotton, how are you alive?” he says. I feel a little guilty for keeping the information to myself.

He continues to eye it for a moment before I speak up. “...Is it okay if… Can you put it back, please? This feels weird…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, frowning. “All I desire is even just one clue. Any clue.” He shoves the cotton back through the hole before facing away in thought. “The sooner we are disconnected, the better.”

I can still feel the sensation of having a gaping hole on my side. It unnerves me. “Sir warlock, could you close me, please…?” I never expected I would ever utter such a sentence until now.

He turns back to me, throwing me a scowl. “Do not push your luck. I already have your promises you will help and stay quiet.”

“But…” I don’t know what to reply. I feel dejected and afraid again. For just a moment I had forgot I was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a monster of a man, and now the feelings are coming back. I start sobbing, pointlessly trying to keep them bottled.

The warlock grits his teeth, clutching at his heart. “No more! No more of this! You are doing it again!” I don’t understand what he’s referring to until I notice our connection has turned to pink once more. Oh no.

“I-I’m sorry,” I explain as best as I can while waiting for the fear to pass. “It’s hard to stop it when I’m scared…!”

“Aaargh! Alright, alright, I’ll fetch my needle, just please stop changing my mind!” he blurts out before sprinting up two floors and coming back with a sewing kit. My sobs abate slightly.

So… that’s what it was? What I was doing? “I’m… I’m so sorry, I swear I don’t want to manipulate you like this, it just does it by itself,” I mutter as I watch him slip a thick brown thread in a needle.

“See, this is exactly the problem. Because you have changed my mind and now I actually believe that.” He pierces my fabric with the needle, weaving the thread in as quickly as he can before pulling strongly to tighten the thread and close the hole. “I would like you to leave my attitude alone.”

“Sorry,” I mutter again. I hesitate to ask that he not be so rough, but I’m afraid even just saying that would change him. The connection calms back down to its now usual blue.

He puts me back in a sitting position before storing the needle and thread back in the kit. Just before he turns to leave, he pauses and picks up my chestplate. “What a strange power, to hijack a spell, and make it extend to the clothes on your back…” He throws me a glance before slipping the armor back on me. I’m confused, but I assume I’ve changed him more than I thought. “If I didn’t have all these reasons to despise you, I might even call you fascinating.”

The face I’m making in my thoughts scrunches up. “Oh, uh… Thanks.”

“Hm.” He sits me back down, then turns me to face the mirror before leaving upstairs.

I’m left alone with my thoughts.

Should…

Should I intentionally use this power and change him for the better?


	5. A meal fast emptied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: puking is quickly mentioned.

About an hour later, I hear the warlock come back down and see him in the mirror going further downstairs. “Where are you going?” I find myself asking. Was I already at the stage of wanting to make conversation, or was it just boredom?

“Supper. None of your concern,” he replies, not stopping in his steps.

“Can I come?” I prod. “I don’t want to stay in this room any longer…” 

“None of _my_ concern,” he says a bit louder so I can hear him as he arrives to the floor below. A few moments later, he comes back up and fetches me with a frustrated growl.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

“You would better be.” He jogs down the stairs, bringing me to a modest room clearly refurnished into a kitchen. A pot gently boils over an open flame in the corner while the warlock sets me down on the table. He grabs a wooden spoon and stirs the pot’s contents. 

I focus on bits of my vision at once. It’s as good of an approximation as I have to turning my eyes.

“I am making vegetable broth,” he uncharacteristically shares. “Am I correct to assume you do not require nutrition in your state?”

The question surprises me. I feel no hunger… No need to sleep, either. “I think so? This body is so weird.”

He lifts up the spoon to his face and blows on it before tasting the broth. “Needs more spice,” he mutters to himself before glancing around him. “Where did I put the pepper...”

“I think it rolled under the cupboard with the glass pan,” I reply, spotting it at the edge of what I can see.

He throws me a look before getting down on the ground and feeling for it until he finds it. He looks at the shaker in his hand with a bit of surprise on his face. “How did you know it was there?”

“I mean… Right now I can’t really do much beyond looking around, so…” I find myself mourning the loss of my facial expressions.

“Hm.” He turns back to his meal, peppering it as he desires and tasting it again. He moves to fetch a bowl, in which he then pours some of the broth before sitting down at the table in silence.

I look at him, ruminating on my thoughts again, thinking back to the idea of intentionally changing him. I don’t feel comfortable with actually going through with this plan, but I keep it in the back of my mind in case of an emergency. He certainly is already more… empathic? Calm? Understanding? ...Simply more _good_ than when he mercilessly transformed everyone and slaughtered our troop leader.

...Yeah. I can’t allow myself to forget he’s done all that. And I’m in this pretty unique position, able to bring some retaliation to the table, right?

I wish I still had Henrietta to give me courage like when I was a kid, but right now I’m the stuffed toy in this situation… Hmm.

Maybe I should take a page out of her book and inspire him to become a better person the old fashioned way. Or at least try to do that first.

“So you live alone here? Why? Doesn’t it get lonely?” I tentatively prod for an answer.

He lets his gaze wander from his bowl to me and back again. “I do not appreciate you asking questions regarding personal matters.” He brings his spoon to his mouth a few times, eating in silence, before speaking up again. “The why is the result of my research being considered heretical by the fools at the castle, so I was forced out of my laboratory, and now have to make do with this pathetic, but at least easily defensible ruin.”

My tone switches to something slightly more worried. “What are you researching…?”

“Immortality.” He finishes his bowl, then taps his napkin on his mouth a few times before swiftly wiping once. He brings his dishes somewhere outside before grabbing me and walking up two floors.

The warlock presents me his laboratory. If downstairs was more comparable to a library and workshop, this room is filled with powerful machines that reach up to his chin, and would’ve certainly surpassed the top of my head even at my usual height. An intricate circle of glyphs made of chalk, erased, corrected and rewritten countless times if the blurry residue of past symbols is any indication, is etched in the middle of the room.

He walks around the room, tapping each device as he passes them by. “These serve to give me readings on each alteration I make on the spell I wrote on the floor. It is a work of careful, gradual adjustments.”

“How do you know it will work?” I ask as I take in the information.

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. Nothing is impossible. If I will it, and assuming a certain sore king doesn’t find the smarts required to send obstacles that could actually delay me for more than a few minutes at a time, I could get this done within the decade.”

I huff. “This is all we were to you? Pawns to a king?”

“Were you not?” he replies immediately, raising an eyebrow.

I pause, finding no words to counter his claim. I’m still appalled, my tone coming off as more huffy than I wished. “You’ve killed countless people without even a second thought!”

He glares at me menacingly, his voice jumping to barely restrained anger. “I am not the one that sent these soldiers to their deaths. If anything, they should count themselves lucky that I’ve turned the majority of them into animals instead of taking their lives! THIS IS MERCY ON MY END!” He exhales slowly, regaining his composure and moving to the window. At the edge of the hill, I spot a lion and a panda fighting each other. No doubt he’s looking at them too. “And no sacrifice is too big or unjustified for the sake of advancement.”

I feel sick, terrified and angry. I don’t think before speaking, even as I see our connection turn the brightest pink. “You’re a monster.”

He suddenly lurches forward, dropping me on the ground. His knees shake for a moment before he pukes through the window. 

The magic turns blue again and I realise what I’ve done.

After coughing out the last bits of his meal, he wipes off the bile with his sleeve and turns to look at me with a terrified expression.


	6. Together alone together

“No! Please!” I beg as he closes the cupboard’s door. I hear him put a lock into place, and find myself in complete darkness.

He walks away, upstairs, high until I can’t hear his footsteps anymore.

“Come back! I didn’t mean to!” I scream into the void. I know he can hear me, but I also know he doesn’t want to listen. “I’m so sorry…”

Of course, the void doesn’t reply. Neither does the warlock.

I stay silent, gulping down my sobs. I feel awful. But I can’t even bring myself to say ‘I didn’t mean to, you’re not a monster’, because I can’t see this as anything but a lie when I’m being honest about his actions.

But I’ve altered his mind again. I think I made him internalize this sentence deep to his soul. Or his ‘lifestream’ if the distinction even exists. I don’t know how magic users conceptualize existence.

I hold for maybe an hour or two, I think, before the sobs I’ve tried to suppress explode out despite my best efforts. All the anxiety of the past several days of unpleasant march, and especially of the chaos that was today, leave my mouth unabashed. “I’m scared… I wanna go home… I wanna see Mom and my big sis again…”

I continue to mumble, muttering who knows what about my home life. Even I don’t know, my thoughts are too jumbled.

I think back to Henrietta again and wish she was still here, so I could squeeze her tight in my arms. “I’m lonely… I want a hug…”

I feel like all my senses have abandoned me. I’m barely thinking enough to curse how this body is unable to cry.

I think it’s my mind playing me tricks at first when I hear the warlock’s footsteps gently come down the stairs. But when I hear the cupboard unlock and open, and see his tired face dimly lit by a candle appear on the other side, I don’t know what to think. I think he doesn’t know either, at first.

But eventually, he sighs. “I abhor you for the pain you’re putting me through. You hurting is hurting me.” He reaches in and grabs me. I see he is wearing a white nightshirt. “You make me hate myself.”

I still haven’t stopped sobbing. His grip tightens like he’s scared of letting go of me.

He stands still in the middle of his kitchen for a moment before his eyes dart to the flame atop the candle. “I should burn you to ashes before you get to change me any more.” He shakes his head dejectedly. “I should.”

My wailing abates, more out of having ran out of energy than anything.

He brings me up to the highest floor.

It’s his bedroom. I’m too emotionally exhausted to care about its furniture beyond the big canopy bed, off-center with its head against a wall.

The bedsheets are messy like someone twisted and turned while failing to fall asleep. Well, not ‘like’, my guess is probably right. Still holding me in his hand, the warlock slips back in them.

And then, he turns on his side and squishes me against his chest.

It’s warm.

It’s not supposed to be comforting, right? It’s supposed to be scary. It’s the warlock that’s hugging me. Not just anyone, but a person that murdered with no second thought.

Apparently that’s not something a tired mind cares about.

Whatever. I gave him the remorse he was missing. Everything is going as needed, I reply to myself, not wanting to think about this further right now.

I feel small in his arms. It’s more comfortable than I thought.

His breathing is calm, long, drawn out. There’s none of the agitation I think I caused in him earlier.

I still don’t think I need to sleep, I really don’t. But time passes by without me even noticing it, like my mind is glazed over by the perceived, paradoxical safety I am in.

It’s too nice, too familiar, like something I’d been missing since I had to part with Henrietta.

It’s funny, my mind thinks. My mom, my sister, my childhood plushie. Everyone occupying my thoughts is a woman. Everyone that I care about is a woman. I don’t know why I even make that observation now. I don’t think it has a logic to its timing. I’m just tired.

The blue link turns a warm red.

The heat is nice.

Despite the lack of a need… I fall asleep.


	7. Magical Limits

My mind reconnects with my situation at about the time the sun’s rays penetrate the room through the window. Peering around myself, I only see the immaculate white sheets of the warlock’s bed, nothing more.

“Sir warlock?” I ask groggily. “Where are you?”

I hear some shuffling at the foot of the bed. I assume it’s him. He drops his feet to the ground and walks around the bed to pick me up. As he turns me so that I face him, I gasp in shock.

His puffy red eyes tells me he’s been crying. It’s pretty evident why. His head last night was bald and now he is sporting chin length hair matching his goatee in color. Just this single change makes me pin his age to somewhere in the late twenties rather than the nebulous anywhere from young to sixty his old appearance gave. Just a hair change frames his features in such a different way… Wait, no no no, even his face has changed! There was something almost inherently malevolent in his elongated traits that’s completely missing this morning, like his face’s lankiness has been forcefully squished down.

My silence betrays me. He definitely knows that I have noticed (there goes my plan to pretend to be oblivious). He raises an eyebrow, doing as best he can to look angered through the tired expression.

“You don’t have a curse that makes your appearance outside reflect how you are inside, by any chance?” is my attempt at defusing the situation.

He shakes his head, not taking his eyes off of me.

I sigh. “So one more thing I need to be vigilant about, I suppose…”

“Indeed,” he replies, his voice badly cracking. It doesn’t take two of me to gather that’s why he’s been more silent than usual.

“What do we do, then?” I ask, worried.

He cuts me off with a frown. “ _We_ ? No. _You_ stay here where you cannot do anything more to me, and _I_ will go search through my books to know what, by the higher powers, is your deal.”

I don’t see myself have much ground to stand on if I try to object. He walks back to the other side of his bedroom, placing me on a table covered with bits and ends of personal belongings.

I use my vantage point to observe the room in more detail than I did last night. It is as crude as the rest of the tower, with little decoration. Next to me on the table is a box of sewing supplies. I guess the warlock didn’t stash it back where it belonged after repairing me yesterday. Besides the bed in front of me, the stairs are to my right, and there is a big, double door closet to my left, which the warlock is currently rummaging through. He settles on a green robe similar to yesterday’s.

“...Good luck?” I tentatively offer as he goes down the stairs.

“Stay out of my hair, Cherry,” he replies without looking back.

This is the first time he has used my name, right? I’m surprised he memorized it from me mentioning it only once.

Since I find myself alone again, I decide to focus on understanding my magical abilities. Twenty four hours ago I didn’t even know I had them, magic users being such a rarity that none had ever set foot in my unremarkable village located in the middle of nowhere. Where would my life be now had I realised I could see and use magic a decade and a half earlier? ...Better not lose myself in a sea of hypotheticals.

So what are the limits of my magic exactly? I know I changed the warlock’s mind and appearance, I know I changed _my_ appearance by taking over a spell no less, and that’s just the things that came so naturally I had almost no control over them. 

I’ve still got this stream of magic kind of embedded in him… Now that I think about it, it’s of the same color as the magic “ants” I saw when the warlock opened me. Maybe that’s important?

Anyway! There’s a loose, pale brown button next to me, which probably fell out of the sewing kit. I let a magic filament make its way towards it, wanting to try to lift it up. It would be pretty useful if I could move items around, after all. But the moment the magic makes contact and I try to pick it up, it cracks into wooden shards. Gods, how hard did I grip onto it!? Is this how I got that other spell stuck into the warlock’s lifestream?

Well, seems like telekinesis is not my forte. At least I’m glad I tried that out on an item rather than a living creature… Still, kind of a shame I broke it so spectacularly - And just as I think that, I see my magic turn red, the shards melding back together into a circular slab before the details of the button appear once more. When finally my magic lets it go, the fully repaired button is black, and made of ivory.

That opens up interesting thoughts. I might not be able to lift up items, but… I morph the button to the shape of a caterpillar, then animate it to move towards me before returning it to its previous form.

This seems to be the closest I have to moving things around… My powers are fascinatingly specific. I turn my attention to the bed’s messy sheets. I visualize making the bed by morphing them into a neatly arranged version of themselves, then let my magic try to replicate the mental image. It’s a bit of a hacky way to just move things, I know, but… At first, it seems to work as intended, until halfway through they turn a dark grey with an intricate pattern of pale white flowers sewn onto them.

I’m left even more confused. I swear, I only tried to change their position, so why did their aesthetic change as well…? What can I even guess from this? Am I putting too much energy into it, and after the main task is done the overflow has to go somewhere, so it gets used to change the item? Do I just subconsciously want to change them? At the very least, from how naturally magic works for me, the least I can say is it seems to just work off of what I’m thinking rather than requiring a specific spell. I just feel so out of my depth, these speculations are complete shots in the dark.

I hear the warlock come up the stairs. “Cherry-” he starts before stopping himself. “...What happened to the bed?”

“I was just testing out my powers, but so far I haven’t found a way to move something without also transforming it,” I explain with a disappointed tone. He turns his head towards me and I accidentally yelp in surprise.

He frowns, brings his hand to his face and touches it. When he removes it, some of the dark purple lipstick he is wearing is now staining his fingers… And we also both notice the elegant white cuffs his robe now has. “By the higher beings… That is it. No more magic without my supervision.”

“I’m so sorry!!” I exclaim. “Stupid me, I should’ve expected that, if I can talk to you through a floor of course I can also...! I swear, I didn’t intend for my experiments to change you again!”

He looks at me for a moment with Ba pitiful expression before exhaling a long sigh. “This is of no importance. We will... I will reverse it all once we are disconnected. That is not what I came upstairs for. It happens that…” His tightens his hand into a fist, biting his lower lip. “I hate to say this, but I need your help.”


	8. Questions and theories

The warlock brings me down to his workshop, placing me next to an open book on the familiar table from yesterday. “Wait for me. I will be quick.” I hear him run off downstairs, then outside. When he comes back a few minutes later, I see he’s wiped off the lipstick on his face. 

“I hope you didn’t use swamp water for that…” I let my tone speak for the grimace I’d be wearing.

He rolls his eyes in reply, moving to the table. “Of course not. I have a filtering system outside. I need clean water for cooking and cleaning, after all. On to more pressing matters!” He goes to his book, running his index finger over the current page. “Is there anything you could tell me about your ancestry?”

“I don’t… think so, why?” 

“Well, if you happened to be of partially non-human blood, it would explain a lot of your abilities, in particular seeing magic. I know of no individual with that skill, save for you.” He flips a few pages back, then picks me up to show me what he’s reading. “However, it is apparently not unheard of for the fair folk, amongst others.”

“So you’re saying I’m half-fairy?” I say, my vision glazing over the words. This would be a lot easier to understand if I knew how to read.

“Well, unless one of your parents directly was one, it would be a much more diluted proportion, and the fair folk are far from the only option, but otherwise that is my current track, yes.” He turns me around, looking me deep in the eyes. “Hence why I need you to think about this. No odd stories about your ancestors? No rumors, no hidden family portrait with a strange individual?”

I think deeply about this for a moment. “I haven’t heard of anything beyond my great-grandparents’ lives, but that’s just that it got lost to time, right? I mean, I don’t think we’re a remarkable family...”

He frowns. “Peasant ancestry is indeed a tricky thing to keep track of.” He takes a pen, jots down a few notes. “I am going to mark this as plausible for now.”

“Okay…” I feel completely out of my depth, and find myself a bit uncomfortable with having to rely on him. “How long do you think it will take to turn me back to human?”

“Quite honestly, I do not know if that is even possible. We still do not know where your body disappeared.” He closes off the book and picks it up, storing it in one of the shelves once more.

“I thought the plush toy was what became of my body?” I say, more as a question than an affirmation.

“No, that was probably entirely fabricated out of the clothes that were on your back, just like this replica of them you’re wearing now.” He skims over the spines of his other books, looking for something. “You cannot turn an entity with a lifestream into an object that does not possess one, hence why you are an incredible oddity. And vice versa, trying to turn an object into a living creature will give you a limp corpse.”

“Gods, that’s… That’s so much to take in… “ What am I, then? Where do I exist if I’m not the plush doll shaped like a white tiger version of me? “Is that why it’s animals you’ve turned everyone into?”

He pauses suddenly. His reply is in a meek voice. “…Yes. I… By the higher beings, I have… done that, haven’t I?” He tumbles forward a bit, placing his hand against the shelf to avoid falling. His other one goes to clutch at his chest, while I find myself snuggly pinned under his elbow. “I’m a monster,” I hear him say. I swear, I’m not making that up, but I think I see his eyes flash pink for a moment as he says this. Guilt overtakes me again, though I still find myself of a split opinion between the fact I seem to be changing him against his will, yet how it’s changing him for the better.

His knees are violently shaking. I feel myself obliged to do something to help. “...Look, the first step to stop being a monster is to fix your mistakes!” I say with faked enthusiasm, before stumbling on my words to add: “Or make up for them or whatever else.”

“Fix…” he mutters absentedly before blinking a few times. I think I spot the pink flash again. “But the spell I used, and the deaths I caused, they are not reversible…” He stands silent for a long moment, until he suddenly jerks his head up, nearly jumping to grab another of his books. “...UNLESS!” He flips the pages frantically, stopping at one and reading at a speed I think is impressive? ...Well, all reading is impressive by my standards.

“Wait, we can actually do something about it? We can bring them back to life and make them human again?” I exclaim with surprise.

His tone is frantic and excited. “Alright then, it would be very complicated, but if by chance the lifestreams of the dead soldiers have not fully scattered yet, we can do something, and for the ones turned into animals it is definitely possible as long as we manage to capture them!” 

He all but jumps for the stairs, bringing us to his laboratory. He erases all the symbols on his ritual spell, dropping down on his knees and scribbling new ones at a crazed speed. “Wait, wasn’t that your, uh, important immortality research?” I ask.

“Who cares. I had written it down on a piece of paper somewhere not so many revisions ago.” He drops his piece of chalk and claps his hands to clean them of powder residue. “Okay, this is definitely just a very imprecise blueprint, but… Since we cannot undo their death, the only way to reconnect their lifestream with their body is to turn back their time to a moment where both were still connected, and the only way to turn back time for something is to send the whole of them in the past. Same principle for the animals; to undo the spell we will have to make time happen in reverse until their body’s time is one where the spell had not happened yet.”

I gasp. “You’re talking about… Time travel, then?”

“Yes!” he yelps happily, pressing me tight against his chest. “And after I do this, I will finally stop being a monster, Cherry.”

The sensation of being held onto warms my heart more than I expected. I let out an overjoyed giggle, basking happily in the moment, reminded of my most pleasant days with Henrietta… I feel the warlock’s grip shift around me. I shake off the overwhelming feeling to notice once again our connection has turned red. “...Oh no, sir warlock, I think I changed you again!”

“Hmm?” he mutters, letting go of me. “Oh gods- I mean, by the higher beings…” His voice is no longer crackly, its pitch now definitely stuck at a lighter level.


	9. Striking a deal

We run (or rather he runs, carrying me in his arms) to his bedroom, looking for a full length mirror. When we can’t find one, I shift his closet so its door includes one on the front. It turns from pine to ebony, its serviceable appearance replaced with something more stylish.

Gods, has he changed.

His figure and face definitely tend towards the feminine now. It is all still something you could technically see a man have, but it’s… Tomgirlish is the word. His hair has further lengthened to his shoulders, and the purple lipstick is back and accompanied by a pale foundation.

His apple green robe has turned black, the bottom of it having shortened to let his ankles breathe. From what little I can see, he is now wearing knee-length platform boots that would seem better fit for trudging through the swamp than the indoors turnshoes he had before.

The warlock is flabbergasted. So am I, honestly, though that’s harder to pick up on due to my permanently frozen expression. Catching a glance at myself in the mirror, I notice that the warlock’s stitching from yesterday was definitely crude and apparent against my white fur… I shake that thought off, there are more pressing matters.

“Gods…” he approaches the mirror, a strand of hair falling in front of his right eye, which he tugs back behind his ear. “What is _this_ , Cherry? this appearance you’re giving me?”

I think deeply, plunge through two decades’s worth of memories looking for an answer... And I choke when I find it. “My big sis’ witchsona.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more disconcerted look in my life than the face the warlock gives me. “...Your sister’s what now?”

I take a mental deep breath. “Look, she kind of had a dream of using magic when she was twelve, she constantly doodled that character that was like, supposed to be her mentor or something, and- i-it’s a whole thing, okay, let’s not get into it right now.” I end up trailing away out of self-consciousness.

He turns his head to me, raising an eyebrow. “You’re turning me into your sister’s childhood imaginary friend?”

“I SAID LET’S NOT GET INTO IT!” Oh gods. I so regret digging up those memories. I really hope he doesn’t ask me to explain how that character got buried so deep in my mind that that’s what my subconscious is going with for changing him. It definitely sheds a light on the ivory button and grey bed sheets at least, this is definitely the decor she fits in.

After a last glance at me, his gaze settles back on the mirror, which he approaches to observe himself more precisely. “...My mind, my appearance, my voice, my mannerisms, gods-” He swings his fist in frustration. “By the higher beings, even my speaking patterns… What am I not gonna have to revert after all this? Are you really sure you’re doing none of this intentionally?”

“I swear on the gods’ wills! I just have no idea how to control my magic, I didn’t even _know_ I had magic two days ago!” I blurt out in a mild panic.

“Right. Right, you’ve said as such before. Sorry. This is just, so… Uncomfortable. I’m a man seeing my body become more effeminate with every moment I spend with you, you know? It’s frightening.” He tentatively lifts his robe to take a better look at his boots.

“That sounds horrible, yeah…” I imagine how it would feel for me to turn into a man and the mental image horrifies me. I can only think that if anyone gleefully wished this to happen to them, they likely have some feelings they should try to explore regarding their identity. “It’s definitely time we stay separate as much as possible, then.”

He shakes his head and tightens his grip on me. “I can’t do that.”

I find myself shocked by his answer. “What? Why?”

“You can’t move around and you have nothing useful to do by staying here, right?” He turns around and goes for the stairs as he continues his explanation. “I’m your legs, and you’re my moral compass. And if we need to hunt down the transformed soldiers, I can definitely use a second pair of eyes and ears.”’

“M-moral compass? That’s a high responsibility… And…” I sigh. We can’t keep dodging the elephant in the room every time one of us brings it up. “You only want me to be that because I’ve changed your mind, don’t you?”

We go down a few floors in silence before I hear him swallow his saliva and reply. “True, but that’s for the better. I have killed for my personal quest for immortality. By your own words, I am a monster. Even after we manage to disconnect and I get to turn myself back into who I am… Some things are better left changed. That much I know.” He trots down the last stairs, aiming for the front door. “I am not yet in a position to learn to be a good person on my own. So let me repeat my offer: will you be my moral compass for the time being?”

He reaches the door, but pauses as he grips the handle, waiting for my reply. My thoughts collide against one another as I try to untangle the guilt from changing him with his correct affirmation that I’ve made him a better person. “...Sure?” I tentatively eke out. 

He turns me around to show me his smile. “Thank you, Cherry.” He swings open the door, walking outside and triumphantly announcing “Now time to hunt some humans!”

“...It’s very creepy when you say it like that.”

His pose seems to deflate a bit with self-consciousness. “My apologies.”


	10. Mysophobia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: bird feces.

“Alright, we’re out here trudging in swamp water. What’s our plan?” I ask, scanning our whereabouts. We’ve walked in a relatively straight line from the tower to avoid getting lost. Which is for the best, considering the lack of any particularly good landmark. I swear, it’s just trees, dirty water and mosquitoes as far as the eye can see. At least the mosquitoes seem to be avoiding us.

“ _I_ am out here trudging in swamp water. You, in comparison, are safely in my arms.” The warlock snarks in response. “What we need to take care of first is the people that did not survive. I had buried your captain back when… Well. You know. Probably will have to dig them back out. Nonetheless, my point is, we should take care of those whose lifestream is the most in danger of dissipating away. Find their remains, whatever they are, bring them home and put them in stasis until we figure out the spell required to send them to the past.”

“Urgh, I can smell the stench already. What it takes to be a hero…” In the middle of my complaint, I spot a little red wisp being carried away by the wind. “What are we looking for exactly?”

“I’m trying to find dead animals the old fashioned way, which could be causing problems as I could accidentally get one that actually is an animal rather than a human. But you, hmm…” The warlock brings his hand to his chin thinking. “Since you can see magic… Look for that.”

“In that case, I’m seeing something red right now. Red like the thing I almost pulled out of you the other day,” I explain pretty quickly. “It’s floating away to our right.”

“...A lifestream fragment perhaps?” He lifts me up above his head and spins me slowly. “Tell me when you spot more of them.”

I stay vigilant, doing my best to look past the thick trunks and branches surrounding us… “There! On top of that tree!” I exclaim as I spot a bigger flame from which little ones are breaking off of.

“Oh, gods above,” he mutters under his breath with a scowl, putting me back in his arms and wading through in the general direction I was pointed towards. “I can float myself down, but climbing upwards is another issue… Which one is it?”

I take another look. “The third behind the one in front of you.”

He approaches it slowly before setting a mud-caked boot on it and kicking. It barely shakes. “Great, just great. How did it make its way up there?”

I don’t know the answer to that, but I prefer to focus on what we can do to get it down. “Can’t you use your magic to lift it to us?”

“I’d need my hands free for that, and I’m kind of busy holding you.” He circles around the tree looking for a way to approach the climb, but not really finding any.

Well, on to the next logical idea. “...I can try using mine? But I’m kind of scared it’s gonna change you again.”

“Right… I’m always the butt of the risk, aren’t I. I cannot deny it is deserved, at the very least.” He thinks some more about this. “Stick to as minute an alteration as you can.”

“I’ll try...” I focus my gaze on the tree, and reach out to touch it with my magic. Something minor… Something minor… Ah ha! My magic grabs a few branches, and circles them down the trunk, making them into stairs. I feel proud of myself for managing to keep it small without side effects for once.

The warlock is silent for a moment, bringing one of his hands to his head. “I think you’ve very slightly lengthened my hair again, but that does seem like it will work. Thank you, Cherry.”

Well, that was a short lived satisfaction. “Gods damn me, I thought I had it this time! I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing a pair of scissors can’t correct. Of what you’ve changed, this is the least of my problems.” He steps on the first branch and tests it to make sure it won’t break under his weight. “This should suffice as long as we don’t linger on them.” He walks up and reaches where the red wisp is… We both gasp.

An owl pellet.

I want to gag at what’s become of the soldier turned into a mouse.

“You’re not gonna _touch_ that, are you?” I say with no care to hide my disgust.

The warlock just lets out a long, dreary sigh. “This is just my punishment for the horrors I commited. Quickly now.”

“Okay, no no no. I’m not letting this happen. Give me a second.” I let out another magic tendril and make it reach for the… remains. I shiver. I decide to just focus on what I remember of the features of the conscript this used to be. It reshapes quickly and turns to wood, becoming a wooden statuette in the approximated effigy of the person. Much… Much better.

“That is certainly a good solution, yes.” He goes to pick it up. The red flame floating above it follows. I feel incredibly relieved.

“I hope the next ones won’t be as difficult…” I mutter to myself. “Let’s get down before the branch breaks --” I hear the crack barely before I feel myself falling.

The warlock’s scream is higher pitched than mine.

And, you know. I kind of expected it. Walking into the swamps, I estimated my odds of staying clean to be very low. What surprises me is when I fall into the water, I just panic. Following a survival instinct that hasn’t been properly shut down yet, my mind tries desperately to tell my paralyzed body to claw back up to reach air, even though I don’t need to breathe anymore. I feel like I’m suffocating. I can feel my cotton filling soak up the dirty water like a sponge and I lose consciousness.


	11. Compare and contrast

The sensation of waking up, eyes already wide open, is one I think it’ll take me time to get accustomed to. There’s a calm afternoon sky above my head. I’m stripped of my armor and still soaking in water… In a small wooden bucket, soapy bubbles surrounding me. I can’t manage to peer over the edge, but that doesn’t prevent me from guessing I’m back at the tower.

A pair of hands lifts me up and squeezes -feels nicer than I thought- the water out of me before letting me soak again and rubbing some more soap onto me. “Are you back with me, Cherry?” the new voice of the warlock greets me.

“Hmm? Yeah, just now…” My mind is still wired to try to yawn, accomplishing nothing. “How did you notice?”

“I… Wait, that’s indeed a good question. How _did_ I do that?” He lifts me up and turns me around, allowing me to face him. I finally get to see the longer hair he’d spoken about while on our hunt. It’s, uh… cute. “Well, I felt a jolt, and in a manner of speaking, it was as if deep down I knew it was that you woke up. I’m guessing the spell embedded in my lifestream must’ve done it.”

“Where’s the soldier we brought back?” I ask, wanting to at least make sure this whole operation wasn’t a bust.

“I put their statuette in stasis as we’d planned, before taking as quick a bath I could.” He scrubs at my left cheek pretty firmly. “...Tenacious… Stain… There we go. I’ve prepared a shovel for a bout of grave digging. At least all the folks I... killed with my own hands are just there for us to take.”

“So much work ahead of us…” I sigh, and let myself relax in the warlock’s grip. If I’d been told being held gently felt so good, I would’ve turned myself into a plush toy earlier, I joke to myself. Well, I don’t actually mean it, I think. It’s just nice to feel cared for.

He grimaces, pulling on the brown thread on my left side. It comes out in one motion, frayed and damaged by mud. The exposed, wet filling feels heavy. “How was this in any way passable work…?” he mutters. “This needs to be fixed immediately.”

I think back to our conversation this morning, a question appearing in my mind. “Do we even care about how beat up the plush toy is, if it’s not actually my body?”

He shows me a pained expression as he squeezes the water out of me again before turning me away from his face. “...I care, alright? It is what I know you by, it is all I know of your appearance, I… I care.”

“Oh, uh… Thanks.” The tone comes out more shaky than I intended.

We walk in silence to the tower, the warlock opening the door as he speaks up again. “I am supposing your lack of enthusiasm is more guilt over changing my mind?”

I let my lack of reply speak for itself.

“Well...” He searches for his words as he climbs up the stairs. “Is there any world where me caring about more than just myself could ever be a negative?”

“I guess not,” I concede. “It’s just… you know. Hard. I don’t like that I’m doing this, even if it’s having the best possible consequences, it’s still… Wrong.”

“Gods, with the acts I committed I easily deserve an execution. If anything, _this is mercy on your end_ , Cherry. Plus, you work with what you get,” he offers with a shrug as we arrive to his bedroom’s landing. He puts me on the table, then fetches a needle, scouring his sewing kit and looking through a few reels of thread. “Sure, it would have been much better had I learned of my mistakes in more… natural ways, let us say. But life rarely lets itself be that convenient. What color should we go for?”

“Color?” I ask, confused by the sudden shift in the discussion.

“For the thread, Cherry! Sure, we could simply use a light grey like you have everywhere else, but where is the fun in that? This is the occasion for a bit of sprucing up, of individuality! Some custom work to remember this by.” He pulls out a pale purple, a smile on his face making it clear he was enjoying himself. “I was thinking lilac.”

I restrain myself from letting out a ‘good gods’ and chastising myself some more for the mental changes. “I really could care less as long as it’s gonna close up the hole.”

“Then I suppose it is on me to be cheerful right now. Lilac it is.” He grabs the reel, playing around with it in his hand and dropping it next to me. He pulls out the thread and passes it through the needle’s eye, throwing me a glance. His smile grows a bit concerned, as if he’s managed to read that I’m restraining myself from voicing my worries.

I can only avoid his inquiring gaze for so long before ceding. “How did you know the right words to say, just a moment ago? I didn’t really take you for a philosopher...”

His expression shifts again to something more pained, as he straightens his back and carefully starts to slip the needle in my fabric. He mutters something, almost whispering. “I was a lonely man, before, Cherry. Do you really think if I was able to keep my thoughts to myself as I pretended, I would have talked aloud when I realized you were alive, yesterday?“

I can feel my fabric being pushed under the poke of the needle before jerking back once the tip goes through. It’s an odd sensation, but not unpleasant. As the stitching progresses, it’s like a gentle tickling on my skin. “You were lonely? You’re sure this is not the mental changes making you say that?”

“I definitely was.” He continues his handiwork along as he talks. His touch is precise and caring, his fingers are pleasantly warm. “It explains why I’m so eager to leave this all behind. I was not only a monster, I was also miserable and unhappy. Everything I told you earlier, it was things I knew, but that I refused to listen to because they did not match how I experienced the world. I thought that relationships were for weaker people that are not able to stand strong by themselves; I thought they were crutches and that I did not need them. That by staying alone, I would prove that this is when we humans are at our strongest. After all, I felt like other people were restraining me from achieving my full potential, so it was not hard to imagine that was the case for everyone else. Needless to say, now that you have given me a taste of empathy… I can tell I was wrong.” The hole in my side now closed, he grabs a pair of scissors and cuts the thread after tying it at each end.

I feel a tentative smile come back to my (spiritual) face. The explanation as to why the warlock is so okay with what I’m accidentally doing to him helps a lot with keeping me from chastising myself. He lifts me to the mirror on his wardrobe. “...This purple is nice, yeah.”

A smile beams on his face. He fidgets for a second, before calmly asking a question. “May I indulge in something? A compulsion you’ve given me that I’ve been resisting and hiding so far, and that I want to make the conscious decision of giving in to.”

The combination of the timing, the exceedingly mindful phrasing and the guilty emotions I’ve just been through cause me to let out an almost hysterical giggle. “Eeh, in for a copper, in for a silver… Sure, knock yourself out, whatever it is you’re about to do-”

I find myself being interrupted by the warlock squeezing me tightly against his chest into a hug that could break ribs, just like I used to give Henrietta. My mind melts into comfy pleasure as I let out satisfied noises.

The warlock ends the hug a minute later with a relaxed sigh, shifting me back into the usual position of lightly hanging from his arms. “Aaaah… Didn’t this feel good, Cherry?”

“I died…” I reply. “I died and I’m in heaven…”

It is his turn to giggle… Before we both get interrupted by a war horn coming from the foot of the hill. He doesn’t lose much time before running for the window. “Oh no.”


	12. Like a lever was pulled

“The royal guard!? They sent the royal guard after me!?” the warlock shouts in panic after seeing the mounted knights making their way across the hill. “I am dead. We’re dead! Why did they send them, and even early of all things!? They’ve never sent a group this soon after the last one!”

I gasp. “The survivor from my troop. He must’ve explained what happened and that’s why they bumped up the threat you represent.”

“Gods…” He swipes his fingers in his hair.

“Can’t you, uh… Dispatch them non-lethally?” I ask, rattling my brain looking for a solution. “And without turning them into animals, either.”

“No, I cannot- When you spend a decade learning all things unethical, that does not leave much time to learn anything that is not!” he exclaims, hiding himself from the window and sliding his back against the wall.

“Then we gotta get out of here!” I continue.

“And leave my victims to their fates? If my time has come, so be it, but something must be done for them.” He glances around, looking for anything to inspire him an answer, before his gaze settles on his reflection in the wardrobe. He regains his calm, though he does frown a bit. “Do you think that surviving soldier would have reported my appearance?”

“He might’ve been interrogated for as many details as possible, yes…“ I think I’ve picked up on what he’s thinking. “You have a plan?”

He slowly stands back up as we start hearing a pounding on the front door of the tower. “A quite shaky one, but yes. All I have to do is convince them I am not the person they are looking for. Could you change my clothes some more, if you please?”

This not being the time for objections, I oblige. With a simple change in color, my magic takes hold on his clothes. His robe shrinks further, stopping at his knees and puffing out into black and white ruffles. It pinches him at the waist, while the fabric in front of his chest turns into satin, cutely framing the spot where breasts would go if he had any. His long sleeves detach, wrapping around his hands and arms into long gloves. I do my best to stop there before my magic continues onto his body. “I’m so sorry for having to make you crossdress like this. This is the only appearance that comes naturally when I try to change stuff.”

He sighs sadly. “No worries, I will simply change into another robe once all this is said and done.” He directs himself to the stairs, suddenly stopping as he thinks of something. “Oh, we need to change yours too or they might recognize your armor, that could cause trouble.”

“...Right,” I reply. He strips me out of my clothes, and one careful spell later it’s a pink sundress he slips back on me. 

We sprint off for the stairs and hurtle to the ground floor. The warlock takes just a moment to put me on the kitchen table before doing his best to appear naturally startled as the door comes down.

“Yes, hello?” he tentatively asks before being tackled to the ceiling by bright green magic, turning the surprise on his face genuine.

One soldier in ornate armor, holding a glowing hand up, gets out from the crowd of trained knights on the other side of the door. With a simple gesture of their other hand, they command the soldiers to rush through and start ransacking the tower, before dropping it back down to their hilt. Gods, the situation got so bad so quickly. After appraising the room, the commander speaks up, their voice possessing a thick Citadel accent. “Where’s the warlock?” they demand to, well… the warlock.

He takes a deep breath before speaking up. “He doesn’t exist anymore.” I didn’t expect him to be this competent at lying, the tone sounds genuine to my ears. “He will not get to harm anyone again.”

“Are you saying you took him out?” the voice coming out of the helmet replies.

The warlock glances at me for just a fraction of a second before snapping his gaze back onto the soldier. “It was a team effort. We picked at it for a couple days until we finally drove him to disappear for good.” I’m not sure the strategy of going for half-truths is the safest over going for whole cloth lying, but if that’s what’s allowing him to think quick on his feet, I can’t really afford to complain.

The knight releases him from the ceiling, but keeps him afloat for now. “If you’re speaking the truth, then this is definitely a thorn in the king’s back taken care of. What’s your name, stranger?”

“Uuuh-” The warlock’s eyes go wide. “My name is…” They send me another glance, asking for my help.

I don’t lose any time in looking around the room… My gaze stops on the pepper shaker from yesterday. “Pepper!” I shout.

“Name’s Pepper! Pepper the witch!” he throws out with a shaky smile. “Sorry for the delay. I can have problems sometimes, remembering memories that do not feel like mine, forgetting important details… Being held above the ground by a man that could definitely kill me if he so desires does not help me be quick on my feet either.”

The knight seems to pause for a moment, carefully considering the warlock’s words. “Right. I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you’re not a threat, Pepper. Don’t try any funny business.” They drop him back down. After a moment of letting him catch his breath and rub his neck, they remove their helmet, revealing hair the color of carrots held in a ponytail, and an undoubtedly female face. “Now what kinda business did a lass like you get into that you had to take the warlock down before we arrived?”

“Oh, it was just a public service! I heard the tale of the poor survivor the day he arrived in the nearest town all shaken, and just with that, my special friend and I were set!” I internally grimace. The warlock plays up the theatrics of his words a bit too much. He seems to feel my emotions as he takes a step back, his expression seeming much more genuine again. “There is a lot of wrong that… the warlock has done. I could not let myself be idle when I heard of his crimes.”

“The noble humanitarian type, eh.” The knight crosses her arms, walking to the stairs and trying to catch a glance of the floor above. “Anything dangerous upstairs?”

“No, just the warlock’s laboratory and living quarters. I have reappropriated them until I find a way to save his victims.” He moves to sit down at the table, not as nonchalantly as he attempted.

“Right. Let me tell my troop not to cause too much damage then.” Ungloving her hand, she brings it to her mouth and whistles loudly. The other soldiers in the room go back outside, promptly followed by the ones that had moved upstairs. “Let me take a minute to tell them the situation.” And with that, she walks out, giving us a moment alone.

I sigh in relief. “We’re saved! We did it!” 

“No, we are not. We are absolutely not. She is onto me,” I hear the warlock panic behind me. He turns me around, making me face him. “Have you seen the way she was gripping the hilt of her sword!? She is not buying it! She is seeing the way I talk and move, and she finds it suspicious!”

“Are you sure?” I try to keep my tone as neutral as possible to calm him down. “I must admit I didn’t pay attention to what she was doing with her sword, but I think you’re overreacting…”

“And what if I am not!? My life is on the line, I am not taking any chances!” He looks me deep in the eyes. “Change me!”

I gasp. “I’m not doing that!”

“Yes, you will! I don’t know, make it… More natural for me to act femininely, something like that! We do not have much time!” he implores, showing me his best approximation of big, round eyes.

“Dammit, no! You know how much I’ll hate myself if this backfires...” My tone breaks into a pleading one near the end. His expression doesn’t falter... I let loose the deepest sigh I can muster. “I’m so sorry.”

“Please… Cherry, just… Please.” He squeezes me in his grip. “I take full responsibility for this one. And we will revert it back, even if I end up pleading you not to. Are those conditions fine by you?”

“Urgh…! Alright, fine, you are tearing me apart, I swear to the gods. But we’re reverting this afterwards, no weaseling out.” I mentally chastise myself for caving in. 

“...No promises,” he eventually replies under his breath, making it clear my conditions would likely end up ignored. 

I growl in resignation. Our connection changes color for a moment and he closes his eyes. A breath later, when he opens them again… They have turned pink, with no sign of changing back.

He tugs a strand of hair back behind his ear before adjusting his stance on his seat. “Ooh… Much better. You are a lifesaver.”

I frown. “Yeah, well, I still have a bad feeling about this.”

“You’ll get over it.” He smirks facetiously before placing me in his arms and petting my head.

When the knight comes back in the room, I hear a little gasp escape the warlock’s mouth. The knight raises an eyebrow and sits in front of us, looking down at me. “Strange familiar you got there, Pepper the witch.”

The warlock replies with a giggle. “Her name’s Cherry. She helps me a lot when I’m struggling.”

“More a fan of liquor myself when it comes to fulfilling that role.” She smirks, placing her elbow on the table to rest her head on her hand. “Alright, let’s talk serious for a minute there. Can you provide proof that you’ve killed the warlock or are we gonna have to hope you’re telling the truth? Because I haven’t seen much truthfulness from you so far, besides the good will.” Inferno, the warlock was right, she’d exactly managed to untangle the honest parts and the lies.

He pauses for a second. He squeezes me, then takes a deep breath. “As you noticed... I have lied about some details of my story. I can’t tell you my connection with the warlock, but I’ll continue to assure you he’s not of this world anymore.” There is a little pause before he adds, “Especially now.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” I ask. He puts his hand on my mouth to shut me up, which doesn’t work but I get the message.

The knight nods. “Mind if we keep an eye on you for the next few days, then?”

“I would have no issue with that!” the warlock replies with… delight? I hear his heart beating underneath me and I think I start to get the picture. “Actually, I’d love if you could capture his victims around the swamp and bring them to me! I’m sure you’ve heard of their fate, right?”

She gives him an inquisitive glance before standing up again. “If that can ensure your cooperation, then we’ve got a deal, Pepper.” She holds out her hand, which he takes and shakes firmly. “Alright then, I have some instructions to give and a camp to set up. If you’ll excuse me…” She gets up and approaches the warlock, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t disappoint me, lass.” Her hand slides onto my head, giving me the same treatment. “I hope your special friend isn’t gonna fail you either.”

He vigorously nods and hugs me, standing up. “I won’t, ma’am!”

“Call me Ashen.” And with that, she walks out the door (after a quick spell to put it back in its hinges) before turning around and pressing her hand around the door frame. A yellow magical veil falls into place.

“She’s done some magic to the door…” I announce, receiving only silence in return. “Sir warlock?”

“It’s Pepper. Pepper the witch,” he replies absently.

By the gods, what have I done...


	13. Someone I’m happy to be

With some experimentation, we quickly understand the spell on the door is a simple, silent alarm that would warn the knight if we tried to get out. The warlock reacts with indifference, climbing the stairs up to his bedroom with me in tow.

Once arrived, he lets himself fall onto the blankets with a happy sigh. “Isn’t this great, Cherry? Now we have a whole group of talented people helping us find the transformed soldiers!”

“Yes, that part is good, but-” I try to edge in only to get cut off by his rambling continuing.

“You know what that means? Now actually finding and saving them all in time sounds actually plausible instead of being a false hope!” He rolls onto his belly, swaying his legs up and down. “And this Ashen woman! I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such strong emotions, even less so _caused_ by the presence of someone! I’ll have to study that phenomenon. Do you think she would be interested in learning about the intricacies of your existence?”

“STOP! Stop! Timeout!” I shout, finally catching a moment of respite. “First and foremost, we’re reversing that last thing I did, because this is crazy. You have nothing in common with… with yourself anymore!”

He turns around once more, moves his hand to the top of my head and starts to pet me. “Says you. From my point of view, it feels more like I’ve grown out of being a lonely, angry man.”

I can already feel this has become a lost cause, but I can’t stop myself from arguing, trying to find any way to make him change course. “But it’s the spell itself making you be okay with the way it’s changing you! It’s not your own feelings!”

He pauses his caresses, raising his hand to his chin and thinking. “You’re probably right. But my feelings about those feelings are definitely my own, and I’ve decided I like them… Plus let’s not repeat the discussion about how old me deserved much worse anyway,” he quickly adds in a low growl. After a short pause, he lifts me up above his face, his deep pink eyes looking straight at mine. “Gods, even, you know what? Turn me into a woman!”

“What?” I ask, saddened.

“ _What_ what? I wanna be a woman. Make me one?” he offers with a shrug and a smile.

“Oh gods… You’re really somebody else altogether, aren’t you… The warlock is dead…” I speak monotonically as the situation hits me.

“And lo and behold there was nothing of worth to mourn,” they reply with a roll of their eyes.

“Pepper, that means I _killed someone,_ ” I say, clarifying the reason for my distress.

“Eeeeh… I’d argue differently since I know I’m still me in here, as much as you don’t believe me. If anything, I was less alive before than I am now.” Their tone, as well as their expression, is dead serious. “But even then, so what? That’s what you’d been conscripted to do anyway, take down the evil guy, mission accomplished.”

I keep rattling my brain looking for a reply to make, a concern to raise… I don’t find any. Every angle my brain could take to make me feel awful for this, they’ve raised an argument against. The warlock was a bad person, killing him was a good thing to do, and even then they think he’s not truly dead, and that’s merciful in a way...? I let out a long, pained groan, during which Pepper hugs me. “I need some rest...”

They nod. “Definitely, yeah. Heavy emotions there, give yourself some time to process them and freshen up. Brood a little, or sleep, whatever helps. I used to like the brooding myself, even if it was to avoid listening to my emotions.” They let out a playful giggle.

I offer a sigh as a reply. “Yeah. I’ll just… sleep for a while. You go… do research, dig up some graves, flirt with Ashen, whatever it is you want. I don’t have any energy to think about any of that right now.”

“F-flirt?” they ask with a concerned expression, their cheeks turning red.

I would offer a smirk before letting myself fall into unconsciousness, but alas, the plush face I possess remains as stoic as ever.

When I wake again, I realize from the rays of the setting sun that I probably wasn’t out for more than a few hours. Still, I feel as refreshed as with a full night’s sleep.

I hear Pepper’s footsteps move from their wardrobe to me, picking me back up and into my usual spot, snuggly fit between their arms. “Feeling better?” They ask while sitting down on their bed.

“Yeah,” I reply. “What did you do while I was out?”

“Hehehe…” The laugh they let out seems a bit nervous. “I was… planning on doing some research on what kind of ancestor you might have, but found myself getting distracted by posing in front of the mirror.”

“I see…” A thought comes to the tip of my tongue, it takes me a while to figure out exactly how I want to word it. “You are being _extremely_ feminine, you know that? I know that’s exactly what I enchanted you with last, but I didn’t expect to that extent...”

“That is true. If I had to assume, the fact it was a mutual agreement, along with… honestly, the curiosity and eagerness I had built up for it over the past two days probably let it through my mental barriers unaltered. Hence the extreme result.” They let themself fall backwards onto the bed. “But I am enjoying this. A lot.”

Their request from earlier comes to my mind, leading me to ask a question. “So it’s curiosity that’s making you demand that I turn you into a woman?”

“I… I guess? I’m not sure… At this point, I have the mannerisms, and my body is quite feminine, yet still… Underneath, it still feels like I am a feminine man in opposite clothes, and… That thought hurts. I’m not sure why.” They let out a long sigh. “I just… I think of what I have down there and it feels like it’s tainting the picture. I think of my chest and it feels as if something should be there and it just isn’t. I don’t want to be a feminine man, or even a man at all, I want to be a woman. I want to stop thinking I’m a man...”

I try to feel for what they want out of me. “So you want me to use my magic to change your body into a woman’s?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I want that, I…” Their eyes squint for a moment, deep in thought. “Nevermind, there is no need.”

“What?” I ask, totally confused.

They bring one of their hands to my hair, gently caressing it. “I already am a woman. My request is silly.”

“What makes you think that?” Not that I’m denying, er… her discovery, I’m just curious where it came from.

“Come now, I want to have a woman’s body so much, how could that _not_ mean I already am one?” She raises her arms up in the air and lets them drop back down, spread out. “Truly, when you think about it, what difference is there between wanting to be a woman and being one? What could possibly make one radically different from the other? By that I mean, who but a woman would want this enthusiastically to be a woman? Gods, it’s like I’ve suddenly smashed my understanding of identity into something new.”

I must admit I do not manage to fully follow her train of thought. I suppose I’ll just have to think on it some more later. But at the very least, there is something I believe I can say. “I’m happy for you then, Pepper.”

“Pepper… Yeah, that’s my name,” she replies blissfully. “I’m truly, fully, Pepper the witch. In mind and… Well, the body remains a work in progress.” She lifts me to her face and offers me a thankful smile. “Still. The changes in my self might not have been quite organic, but I am someone I am happy to be now. Thank you.”


	14. Another Perspective – Pepper

After our short discussion, Cherry expressed the desire to sleep some more until morning, which I allowed her to do. I personally opted for staying up overnight, hoping to learn more about her predicament.

Going down to my library, I was surprised to find Ashen there, seeming to be wistfully observing the spines of my book as if in recollection. I kept my observation to myself, preferring a more innocent line of enquiry. “Looking for something, lady Ashen?”

She seemed mostly unfazed by my arrival, beyond her gaze shifting to something more cautious as she turned her head towards me. “Nah, nothing in particular. Was just thinking about the warlock. How’d a dainty flower like you take care of him exactly?”

I took just a moment to try to come up with a deflection on the spot, but was unable to find anything. Guiltily, I twiddled my fingers, avoiding her gaze. “I’m afraid I can’t give you the answer to this question.”

Ashen raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, contemplating how to reply. “See, this is what I don’t get about you, little lass. You’re hiding something, but you’re being completely honest about it. Boggles my mind, it does.”

“Well, can’t a person have their secrets?” I said, attempting to de-escalate the situation. “Surely you have some too.”

The knight quickly grimaced. Apparently, more than just speaking a general truth, I’d hit a nerve. “...Touché. Alrighty then, I won’t press you on it, but it better by gods not spell the death of me.” She turned her gaze back to the room, another question seeming to be on her mind. “Say, do you at least know what professor Lucius was cooking up in this here middle of nowhere?”

My eyes went wide at the name. She knew him? She knew the old me!? Or knew _of_ him at least…! Gods, how unpleasant that name felt now. I wanted to never hear it again. I shook myself out of that bout of panic before she noticed. “From what I understand,” I pressed the words as if to make my lie more believable, “he… was looking to crack the code of immortality.”

“...What for?” she inquired worriedly. 

“Well, obviously, because death should be done with. The amount of suffering it brings is terrifying. It doesn’t have to be one of the laws of life that it has to end.” I couldn’t help but let some of my zeal slip out. My identity, my self, might’ve taken a direction I hadn’t expected, but my ambitions had stayed the same. Though, I did technically lie - I gave her my reasons, rather than my old self’s. He was just in it for the challenge, attempting to prove his ridiculous theory that relationships were crutches for lesser people. In essence, a power trip I was more than happy to leave behind, keeping only the core idea of bettering our world.

“Huh. I was expecting something more…” Ashen snapped her fingers a few times, trying to find the word at the tip of the tongue.

“Nefarious?” I finished her sentence in her stead, prompting her to let out a grimace communicating that the word had been close enough to the one she was looking for. “I can’t say I blame you. While I believe he sought to do good, he didn’t quite communicate that to the rest of the world, and he certainly wasn’t helped by some of his… misconceptions.”

She slowly slipped her arm back under her other one, crossing them once more. “...I didn’t quite expect nuance either. Didn’t think he was the kind to deserve it. What’s he to you, exactly?”

I tilted my head to the side, looking away. “That is a tricky question to answer without saying what I don’t wish to reveal.”

Ashen simply shook her head, a mix of exasperation and bemusement apparent on her face. “Yeah, sure, play riddles with an agent of the law, little lass, I’m sure it’ll work out for you.”

“Yet you’re not stopping me,” I replied with a sly smile, a bit of a blush creeping onto my cheeks for a reason that eluded me. Was that what flirting was? Had I used the appropriate tone of voice? And had I even meant to do that?

“You’re right again.” She grinned. Gods, what a pretty grin. “Maybe I should be less clement, like my colleagues.”

My smile disappeared, replaced with a neutral expression. “Why? Do you think their method would be more effective at getting me to fess up?”

She let out a roaracious laugh. “Gods, no! You’d be proper uncrackable if we tried to use brute force.”

My head tilted slightly. “Then why keep the brute method around?”

She paused for a second, her gaze settling back onto my face and growing confused. “...Huh?”

My brows furrowed. “Why keep using it if it’s ineffective?”

All she offered as a reply was an avoidant shrug. “Well, you know, because it works better on the riff-raff…”

My upper body inched forward. “Does it even? Wouldn’t kindness still be preferable?”

By now, Ashen looked deeply uncomfortable, reflexively taking a step back. “I mean, I guess I don’t disagree with you per se, but not everyone has your point of view, especially in the royal guard...”

“So the people tasked with the safety of the kingdom know no method of dealing with people but roughhandling, or in the event they know other ones, are encouraged to use this one as their primary method,” I stated as plain as day.

She took another step back, her hand moving down towards the handle of her sword. “Come now, you’re not being fair.”

My gaze drilled holes into her face as I approached her for every step backwards she took. “Do you think the way they’re doing this is right? Do you think it is fair on the populace?”

Ashen’s hand relaxed, hovering motionless a dozen centimeters away from her sword. “...Are you Lucius’ apprentice? I swear you’re speaking just like him right now.”

And just like that, my focus evaporated, and I found myself confused as to how I’d gotten into such a proselytic state in the first place. I looked for a moment at our surroundings, as if I’d forgotten where I even was.

As an uncomfortable silence settled for a dozen seconds, Ashen relaxed her stance, and decided to speak again. “Look, that was a lot of questions you just made me ask myself, but I don’t want to have that on my mind right now. I’ll just… think on what you said another time, okay?” 

I replied with a meek nod, words refusing to come out of my mouth.

“Was nice talking to you, Pepper.” She patted me on the shoulder before turning away towards the stairs. “Take care, interesting little lass. Hug your familiar tight tonight.”

This… event behind me, I focused back on my task of searching books for the explanation of Cherry’s situation.


	15. Familiar Unfamiliar

The next morning, after Pepper’s breakfast, she brings me to her library. She puts me on the table again before fetching a few books that she piles next to me.

“I believe we should cross fairies off the list of possibilities,” she tells me. “The fair folk live for thousands of years and are very protective of their family - had one of them been your ancestor, they would’ve gone to search for you already. Not to mention, their magic is usually linked to the forests and the plants, which doesn’t quite fit the… impressive renovating you have done to my wardrobe.”

“Uh… Sure. You’re the expert there, Pepper,” I reply. “Any other idea, then?”

“Right, let me think...” She closes her eyes, deeply thinking for a second… I find myself wanting to raise an eyebrow when I see her cheeks turn a mild pink, with a smirk on her lips.

I mentally reproduce the sound of a cough, apparently snapping her out of a reverie. “Are you okay, Pepper?”

“Uh! Yes- yes, I am. Sorry. I had the word familiar in mind, as that is what Ashen likens you to. Then my thoughts drifted, and… Anyway. Maybe familiars?” She quickly pushes aside the current book at the top of the pile, then looks through the titles. She pulls out the one second from the bottom and places it on top, opening it. “There we go.” She starts skimming the page, using her index finger as she reads along. “Magically attuned beings from another dimension, can see magic - at least that criteria is fulfilled -, they seek mutually beneficial contracts with magic users, and have a peculiar talent in…” She goes silent, muttering incredulously as she reads further. “Oh. Ooooh. Ooooooh…”

“What does it say?” I ask, curious.

Pepper scratches the back of her head, seeming nonplussed. “I guess coincidences do happen. Your secret ancestor was very likely a familiar after all.”

“Oh. What makes you think that?” There seems to be an unspoken communication between our minds as Pepper picks me up to show me the page.

“Apparently transformative magic is their specialty, which would explain why you have picked up on it so fast you managed to change my polymorphing spell in mid-air.” She gestures at a series of drawings showing a crow turning into a house cat. “This talent also includes self-shaping, which would make the fact you cannot change the plushie a snag in the theory.”

“I mean, I haven’t exactly… tried,” I admit. “I kind of made a button explode, so I kept my experimenting to what I knew was safe.”

“Right, that does makes sense, my assumption was simply faulty… Well, we have already established the plushie is not your body anyway, so maybe that would not even rule the possibility out.” Pepper spins around to rest her back against the table. “But since you are here talking to me, I cannot assume your body has gone far. Maybe you just made it invisible in some manner.”

Something tickles my thoughts as she says this. “That reminds me, when you opened me the other day?” She seems to grimace in recollection, but nods. “The fluff inside of me was covered in specks of magic? Or at least I think that’s what that was, you couldn’t see it.”

“Is that so? Hmm… Well, that is when I finally have a reason to regret never learning a spell to sense magic. It is supposed to be the basics, but with my past beliefs on what makes a person strong, I had challenged myself to learn magic without…” The witch lets out a mighty sigh at first, before suddenly jerking her head up as she gets struck by an idea. “Though, I guess we could just ask for help?”

After some more arguing back and forth, Pepper finally manages to begrudgingly convince me to let Ashen in. The knight’s gaze flows across the room, while the witch’s stays firmly planted on her crush. “Alright then, little lass, what do you need my help with?”

Pepper snaps out of her reverie, focusing back on the moment. “Uh, right. Would you happen to have a spell to sense magic by any chance?”

“You don’t?” the knight replies, side-eyeing her.

“Let us say I happen to be self-taught in weird ways,” Pepper offers as another half-truth.

Ashen shakes her head, but nonetheless seems to oblige, moving to the center of the room. “I haven’t seen this one used since my days at the academy, but that should work.” She raises her hand above her head, a small orange orb appearing in her palm. The orb slowly grows in proportions, thinning to a translucent veil as it covers the entire room in a slight colored tint. 

“Thank you!” the witch exclaims excitedly, turning her head in my direction. Ashen watches as she walks towards me, scrutinizing me. “...You were right, Cherry, you are covered in a blue aura.”

“Wait, so the plush toy’s really alive?” Ashen demands, cautiously eyeing the magical link between Pepper and me.

Pepper gulps, laughing nervously as she glances backwards to the knight. “She is… The story behind this is quite lengthy, but this is one thing I am willing to explain, would you just give me a few minutes to finish up understanding this predicament.”

“Starting to be a lot of lies by omissions, little lass.” Ashen nods disapprovingly, though she eventually moves to the opposite side of the room, resting her back against a wall.

Pepper mouths another ‘thank you’ and turns expectantly towards me again. “So, it seems as if you have enchanted the plushie somehow, but I still do not see your body anywhere.”

I sigh. “Good gods. Not even, like, a lifestream somewhere?”

“No… Unless… unless it’s all hidden in the plushie... Can you try to shake an arm, or do anything similarly easy?” Pepper suggests, holding my left arm in her hand to illustrate.

“I’ve already tried when I woke up like this. I tried to move but it was like I was stuck in this position.” I try to tug my arm out of her grasp to illustrate it to myself, not sensing anything changing.

“But you can feel sensations through the plushie, right?” she says, squishing on my hand with hers.

I stay pensive, wondering where she’s going with this. “I do, yeah...”

Pepper’s head slowly turns upwards in thought, her eyebrows furrowing. “Maybe you have mapped your concept of self to it? Can you try to move yourself, yet not move the doll?” 

I’m a bit confused by what she means, but I get to the task wordlessly. I imagine my arm being something separate from the fabric. I try to visualize my hand tearing itself out from the sea of cotton it is enclosed in. I find it a bit silly, but I press on as I start to feel tingles in my entire limb. I groan as I put more and more effort in… And gasp in shock as I see a blue, transparent paw work its way out of my arm and into my field of view. I spot from the corner of my eye the other two women sharing the same disbelief. Not one to stop there, I press my whole body forward against the walls of fabric surrounding me… and I stumble off the table down to the ground.


	16. Strange new me

The two women look down at me in silence. I lie there confused for a second until I feel my limbs come back from their forced slumber. I stand up, slowly, on my legs, I stumble. I glance at my hand and it’s a paw looking back at me. No, wait - it morphs into a hand and I use the table to help me stand up. Woah, it feels so weird to look back at the plushie I was and see it be a fraction of my size. The mirror - there’s a small standing mirror on the table, right? I grab it, and its frame grows ornate in my hands.

The face that looks back at me is undoubtedly blue. And feline. The only feature I can recognize as my own is my hair… I try to turn the mirror to see more of myself, only getting frustrated in the process. I don’t waste time, dropping the mirror and jumping up the stairs to the bedroom, barely feeling the handrail shift to ebony under my touch.

I run to the mirror on the front of the wardrobe and finally get to see all of myself. I’m covered in fur from head to toe, walking on odd legs that seem like a cross between a tiger and a human’s. In fact, that’s how my entire body could be described - human, my old human self with all its imperfections, but with a tiger layered on top. I look at my hands, then down at myself. My whole body is blue, translucent, wispy even. There’s a strand of this wispy substance going straight out of my back, just above my tail. Following it to its other end, I see Pepper’s head popping out of the stairs and climbing to my level, holding my plushie in her arms. She’s followed by Ashen holding her orange ball above her head, probably to keep me in sight of the spell.

“Pepper,” I exclaim, turning towards her, “this is crazy, what happened to me?”

“Just… give me a second to think this through…” the witch replies, lightly lowering her head, her eyes closed in deep thought.

Ashen approaches me cautiously. “Can you hear me, miss?”

“Yeah, I can… I… “ My reply stops as her expression makes it clear she isn’t hearing me back. I simply nod instead.

Pepper jerks her head back up and runs up to us. “That… must be it! I would be hard pressed to understand how, but I think you turned yourself into pure magic? Wait, does that mean magic is alive in some manner? That’s… This is a major discovery!”

I pause, looking at her, before glancing back at my hand again. It does explain the wispiness… “Is this really unprecedented?”

“I mean, as far as anyone is aware, I believe.” The expression Pepper bears is dead serious. Her eyes dart up for a second before falling back on me. “Wait, does that mean… This spell you have embedded in me… It is not merely a spell, it is a part of yourself…”

“...Inferno,” I cuss. “I can’t suppose that’s good.”

“I cannot suppose that either.” Pepper absentmindedly squeezes my plush self in her arms.

Ashen butts in once more, crossing her arms. “Alright, that’s it, someone fill me in here. What’s the deal with you two lasses?”

Pepper and I exchange a glance.

“What should we tell her?” I ask the witch.

She offers me a resigned sigh as a reply. “We should come clean. This is as far as the half-truths can get us.”

I’m a bit worried, and let that show with a hand gesture for Ashen to understand too. Nonetheless, I take a step back and let Pepper speak up.

“So… This is Cherry, one of the victims of the warlock I met four days ago.” She halfheartedly points in my direction. I offer a quick bow to the knight, who gives one in return before turning her eyes back onto Pepper. “As for me…” Pepper’s gaze turns avoidant. “I am the warlock.”

Ashen says nothing for a dozen seconds, appraising Pepper up and down with a stoic face. Eventually though, her expression turns sorrowful. “The one self-taught professor of the academy, huh… I guess that does add up.” The knight lets out a deep sigh. “I wanted to see for myself that you’d truly turned to the evil arts, and now I suppose I have, professor Lucius.”

Pepper lets out a complete grimace. “Please, never use that name again.”

Ashen barely nods.

“The… academy?” I ask, now being the one out of the loop.

Pepper turns her head towards me. “I told you I had a laboratory in the capital before being evicted for my illegal studies, right? It was as part of my benefits as a professor in the royal academy. Needless to say, neglecting my classes is part of the long list of my failures.” 

“Just…” Ashen seems to be thinking aloud. “I knew you were a conflicted loner, little… Pepper, I just didn’t expect your conflict to be an identity crisis.”

“That is because it was not,“ the witch states. “My new identity is courtesy of Cherry’s rampant magic. My old self genuinely was as he presented himself to be.”

Ashen’s expression is that of confusion. “O… kay?”

Pepper jumps into further explanations before any question is even asked. “It’s okay though! I’m fine with it, genuinely!” She apologetically shakes her hands.

“Would your old self have agreed?” Ashen asks, then immediately regrets it, turning her head away. “Forget I asked.”

Pepper throws her a puzzled glance. “I do not think he would have disagreed so much as he would not have understood. He was too convinced of his self-righteous crusade to want better of himself.” She lets two seconds pass by before inquisitively continuing. “Why do you care so much about the old me, Ashen?”

Ashen just mutters the answer, avoiding Pepper’s gaze. Seeing that this didn’t satisfy the witch, she growls and repeats herself aloud. “Because I had a gods damned upbringing and now I crush on people with significant magic skills.” I grimace in empathy, but she raises her hand to silence us before we can say anything in reply. “And before you ask, yes, I know how many abusive relationships with monsters it makes me walk into. I’ve stopped counting ‘em.” The tone of her voice made it seem clear she’d had this conversation before, and this was a sticking point to her. “Now I know your secret, you know mine…”

“My old self would have simply added to that number, you know that?” the witch asks, worried.

The knight replies quickly. “Terrifyingly aware. Doesn’t stop the heart from hoping.” She paces for a moment, then shakes her head, turning towards Pepper once more. “One way or the other… You’re under arrest for treason to the crown and practice of the dark arts, Pepper.” 


	17. Magical Shift

“Right,” Pepper replies after a few seconds, squeezing my plushie once more. “That is more or less what I expected.”

“I’m sorry, professor. The law is the law, and I’m here to enforce it,” Ashen states, dejectedly shaking her head.

“Surely you must understand that saving the lives of my victims must take precedence, though? We should not let innocent lives be lost merely to bring justice to my old self faster,” Pepper adds with a dead serious tone.

“Oh- uh… I’d reckon that’s important, yeah. Sure,” Ashen concedes. “It’s against procedure, but I’m sure I can obtain an exception if I just get an audience with the king.” After an unconvinced groan from the witch, she turns her eyes onto me. “What about the civilian? Can you turn her back?”

“I honestly do not know of anything that could, at this point…” the witch replies, looking at me in turn. “I have never heard of something like that happening to a familiar before. Mind you that they are not my area of expertise, but still...”

I sigh, turning back to the mirror on the wardrobe. “Yeah, I guess I’m not very human anymore, am I...” I think back to the possible futures I’d imagined for myself, bitterly crossing them off one by one as I look down at my translucent blue hands. Despite having regained their fingers, they’re still as if covered in fur, if the distinction even matters when I’m actually all made of magic as far as we know. I think back to the way they shifted effortlessly to this shape from paws, and just visualise them shedding the fur… And with that thought, each strand of hair individually recedes back into my skin with an unpleasant feeling. I close my eyes for a second and let the sensation crawl all over me, before touching my head, thinking back to my human face. When I open my eyes again, I’ve just finished shifting from the half-tiger form I was in back into normal, good old me... or at least a variant tinted blue. How I missed me. I take a look at myself, making sure all is as I remember, and I sigh again, with relief this time. When I turn back around towards Pepper and Ashen, they seemed to have been waiting for me before resuming the conversation.

“So here is the self-shaping we were looking for, definitely confirming the familiar theory,” Pepper states, suddenly making me feel self-conscious. “I believe I need to study my book in more details; it will likely answer some questions.”

“Aye, you do that, little lass. I think I need to get my move on if I wanna reach the capital before noon in two days. I’ll tell my men to continue rounding up the victims.” With a quick wave, the knight directs herself towards the stairs.

Pepper runs after her, grabbing her sleeve and stopping her only two steps down. “Are… you really sure this is a good idea? Ashen, I can tell you how the king will react. The moment you tell him I’ve been apprehended, he will immediately send the order to bring me back for an execution as soon as possible. You will not even be able to put a word in before he will dismiss you onto another task.” She seems very concerned from the way she’s unconsciously squeezing my plushie in her other arm.

Ashen sighs, before turning around and moving Pepper’s hand off her arm. “Look, just… Pepper. I know you don’t have much trust in the system. You’ve made clear as much. But I know my colleagues and I trust my king, I know he ain’t corrupt. Everything will be fine and you don’t need to worry.”

“Would your colleagues have given me the same mercy as you did?” Pepper asks, unconvinced.

Ashen pinches her nose bridge in frustration. “Well, no, but - Okay, no, stopping that discussion there. I said my thing. I’ll go to the king, reason with him, and you’ll see that everything will be working as intended.”

“That is the problem, though. I am not accusing the system of malfunctioning, but of having nefarious intent for everyone but the powerful few!” Pepper calls to Ashen’s back as she slowly walks downstairs and away.

I bite my lip and clench my fists; Pepper feels my frustration through our connection. “Can we just please put the political drama aside? Inferno, I do not want to deal with this. I just want to know what I can do to disconnect from you and go back to as close to my old life as possible.”

Pepper finally relents, abandoning her attempts to change Ashen’s mind to focus back on me for a second or two before squinting. “The spell that allows me to see you is fading away.”

Oh, we’re back at that setback. Hmm. “Is it that big of a problem now that you’ve taken a look at me?”

“Well, you would not want me to accidentally walk into you and transform further, would you?” Pepper replies with a smile that definitely betrays a desire to do so intentionally. Right. She is still looking for me to turn her body female. I’m not yet mentally prepared to change her on her terms, though. The memories of the way my magic killed her old self are still much too fresh… even if I know she would severely object to interpreting that situation as the death of the warlock.

“Alright, alright, let me think…” I look around the room for something to grab. I finally rummage through the sewing kit, pulling out a reel of thread. “If I’m holding something, you should be able to know where I am, righ-- woah!” The thread turns multicolour in my hand and I drop it as I see the reel change into something further, though with having stopped the change in the middle I cannot quite tell what. “Okay, am I going to transform anything I touch? Am I just a walking danger?”

“So far, we will have to assume the answer is yes,” Pepper replies with a frown, shifting her grasp on my plushie to hold it with both her arms again.

Hmm. The plushie.

I slowly approach Pepper, being very careful not to touch her anywhere, then slip my hand inside the plushie. It feels odd, like donning a familiar, if a bit tight, coat. I push further until I find myself slipping back inside, and suddenly, I’m back to being in the position I was stuck in for the past few days. A quick attempt shows me that I can lift my hand back out at anytime though, so I assume it must be true of the rest of me as well.

All in all, going inside the plushie voluntarily feels a lot less anxiety-causing.

“Oooh. You are a smart girl, Cherry,” Pepper replies, having felt what I just did.

I snicker, a joke coming to my mind. “What can I say? Only this vessel can contain my immense power.”


	18. Endless Barrel of Exposition

The next two days fall into a weird routine. With having regained my ability to act alone in magic ghost form (as I’ve ended up calling it), I get to explore the swamps and search for some victims to nudge towards the crowd of soldiers, which helps round them up faster. Meanwhile, Pepper plays the part of a bookworm, absorbing all the info she can about my predicament. There’s an odd feeling - the further away I get from Pepper, the more I feel a tug at the back of my mind beckoning me back towards the tower. It’s easy to guess the cause; it’s the bit of me I’ve embedded in her. Still, I add that to my known limits - for all intents and purposes I cannot stretch myself thin... in the most literal sense.

Near the end of the afternoon, Pepper calls me back to the workshop. The place is even messier than before, with a tower of books stacked near the table and too many loose papers covered in writing for me to count. I notice my plushie is set on the table too.

“Okay, so,” Pepper starts, grabbing the book on top of the pile and opening it on the table, “first, the bad news out of the way. I very much think the turned into magic affaire is truly unprecedented. In essence familiars are much more magically attuned beings than humans, but that is nowhere near enough to explain this.”

“So I’m doomed,” I say while inserting myself in my cotton-filled receptacle. I’d like to pretend that revelation shocked me, but I had spent the last two days mentally preparing myself to hear this. It certainly helped soften the blow.

“Not necessarily.” She sits down and reaches for a few papers on her right, which she then shows me before remembering that without drawings, it was pointless. “Sorry. Point is, I was thinking that the same solution we are planning for my victims would work for you?”

I quickly jog my memory to make sure we’re on the same page. “You mean the sending back in time to before the spell happened thing?”

She nods enthusiastically.

“But won’t that cause a problem with my, y’know, bit of me in you?”

Her grin turns into a frown. “That who knows. Just to be safe we would be better off finding a way to disconnect you from me first, that is for sure. Hence, this is what I will be focusing on from then on.”

“Right.” I reply. Noticing that Pepper is trembling excitedly in her chair, I guess she has more things to tell me. “And what else?”

“Familiars are fascinating.” She states like a five year old who has found herself a new obsession.

“Ok…?” I tentatively say.

“Seriously! I mean it! Did you know demons are actually familiars? If a creature can be summoned and you can sign a pact with them, it is always a familiar! So many things I thought were separate species are actually just all familiars!” she rambles, “Well, though saying species is a bit of a misnomer, what with their shapeshifting abilities, they can come in any and all species you can imagine, even ones that don’t exist on Earth!”

“Pepper...”

“In general, each familiar has a specific form they are most comfortable or attuned with - take you for example, if I had to wager the tiger-human hybrid you were when you first came out of the plushie was probably what you have inherited from your ancestor,” she pauses for a second before immediately adding ”well, probably mixed with human blood of course, but still.”

“Pepper.”

She stands up from her chair, placing her hands on the table. “So that means your ancestor was probably a white tiger familiar who signed a pact with a powerful witch! Then something went awry and they had to continue the pact alone, eventually attuning their collaborator into their ancestral memory, causing you to subconsciously default to-”

“PEPPER!!”

She blinks and shakes her head, looking around as if she needed to regain her surroundings.

“Say all that again, but slower. You started skipping steps near the end, and to be honest I didn’t even manage to catch all of it.”

“My… apologies.” She definitely seems disoriented, and exhales deeply, refocusing on explaining herself slower. “Familiars are actually beings from another plane of existence. They only exist on Earth either through being summoned here or through being a descendant of a summoned familiar, like you. Besides their attunement to magic and their shapeshifting, there is one thing that makes them special, and it is pacts.”

She looks at me looking for a mental confirmation I’m following, and after receiving it, she pulls out a new piece of paper, doodling on it as she goes along with her explanations. “They can sign pacts with people on Earth, these pacts are required to be mutually beneficial, and all members of the pact are seen as equal. Once a pact is fulfilled, the familiar and the person or persons are free to go their separate ways.”

“So, you think my ancestor signed a pact with a witch, and then…”

She drops her pencil, then sets herself straight against the back of her chair. “...And then something happened. Most likely, the witch died in some manner before the pact was over. That is when another mechanism kicks in for the familiar - indebted, they are to seek to complete the pact either alone or with descendants of their partner. And if they do not manage to… That task is passed down upon the familiar’s children through what they call ancestral memory. Once that kicks in, the descendants never forget the appearance of the original person the pact had been signed with, even if after centuries, it becomes a dream-like memory they cannot shake out of their head.”

I pop my head out of the plushie, eyes furrowing. “...I don’t follow.”

“Your sister’s ‘witchsona’, which I have become, that you said you have memorized for reasons you do not want to get into,” My eyes go wide as I connect the dots. “Is actually probably just a centuries long dead witch.”

I don’t know if this is  _ more _ or  _ less _ embarrassing.

Pepper stands up again, closing the book and putting it back at the top of the stack. “Which therefore brings me to my current line of thought - what if completing that old contract would help you disconnect from me? It could be totally unrelated of course, but in the odd chance it is not, what have we got to lose?”

I jump out of the plushie onto furred feet. With a frown and a shake, I turn them into human ones. “We can try that I suppose, but how would I even know what I need to do?”

“Well…” Pepper fails to hide a small smile etching itself on her face. ”I was thinking you could sign a pact with me.”


	19. Connection Confusion

I raise an eyebrow, skeptical. “How would that help?”

Pepper picks up my plushie in her arms, turning back towards me afterwards. “Well, if we want to understand an old pact, making a new one altogether would provide us insight into the nature of what we are looking into.”

I shrug. “Okay, yeah, fair. How do we do this then?”

She walks two steps forward, closing a bit of the distance. “I was thinking that as a test run you would share with me your ability to see magic. That way, I get to see you permanently, and that is pretty mutually beneficial, isn’t it?”

“Oh gods yeah, I’m pretty tired of having to watch my steps or stay in my plush toy.” I throw the inanimate item in question a glance. “But is that even something I can do?”

“It is very common for one's first pact with a familiar to be obtaining this useful ability, and I would bet that is part of the reasons why mages with familiars tend to have a reputation as talented spellcasters. Point is, it is something low stakes that can be paid back simply, so simply that in our case it helps us both out already. All you have to do is transform my eyes a little!” She says with an innocent little smile.

I immediately perk up and grimace at the word ‘transform’. There’s the catch. “Pepper…”

She frowns, squeezing my plushie. “I know, I know. I’m really sorry your first few experiences with that type of magic have been traumatic.”

“They have been haven’t they…” I wonder if I can ever see myself dabble in that kind of magic again. With a sad sigh, I come to the conclusion that I probably could, just… not now. “I still need time…”

Pepper rubs the back of her neck, feeling guilty. “I know you do, but that’s exactly what we don’t have, I’m afraid.”

“Do we?” I try to argue. “This is for saving me, not the soldiers - this isn’t as urgent, is it?”

She shakes her head. “The moment we send the soldiers back in time I will be dragged off to prison, Cherry.”

“...Inferno.” I cuss.

I pace around the room for a bit, trying to calm my emotions. I breathe in and out at regular intervals, before finally digging my head in my palms. I guess if this is my only chance to get a normal life back, I can only bite the arrow.

Pepper has been standing at the ready for a few minutes now, waiting for me. I finally find the strength to lift my head up again, then look in her direction. “Alright. Okay. I’m doing this I guess.”

“Good luck.” she says.

I walk right to her face, then tentatively lift my hands to her temples. I fidget for a bit, hopping in place, before removing my hands and turning around. “I can’t, I can’t--” I crane my head backwards in frustration, before refocusing myself. “Okay. No. I have to do this.”

I feel a reassuring warmth coming from our connection. I turn around and see Pepper giving me her most determined smile.

I step back to my previous position, holding my hands against her temples. Finally, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, focus deeply on my task to change her eyes, then initiate contact.

I feel energy explode out of me in a show of multicolor lights. My eyes pop open against my will, but I'm not any less blinded. I think I hear Pepper scream in pain under the deafening, gravely hum of magic. My feet lift off the ground and I sense my tiger tail growing back. Fur starts to cover me starting from my toes, climbing all the way to my head, changing my form in the process.

When the transformation finally reaches the tip of my nose, the light stops as quickly as it started, and I crash back down on the ground, confused. I take notice of myself, and indeed, I am in my half-tiger form, though I have no clue as to why. It takes me just a moment of concentration and I’m back to my human self thankfully. “Pepper, are you okay?” I finally ask after having all of me accounted for. I glance up, slowly getting myself back on two legs… and stop dead as I see Pepper.

Atop newly fluffed up curly hair sits a witch’s hat she definitely didn’t have before -- all black, with a white ribbon. I’m not quite sure what material I must’ve turned into it. A delicate amount of eyeshadow was added to her makeup, and speaking of her eyes, her pupils had turned into slits, and I can only hope that was the intent of the pact being fulfilled. My gaze dropping lower… It’s undeniable she is now filling out her clothes perfectly. She brings a hand to her chest and crosses her legs, and from the happy smile on her face, I confirm my conclusion is right.

I just gave her her female body.

“Cherry, by the gods!!” she exclaims, stunned.

“What just happened?” I ask. Did she know this would happen? Did she trick me somehow? Gods, and now the thought makes me grimace. She wouldn’t stoop that low-- well, at least not anymore, right?

“I am… me! In every corner of my mind, and now every inch of my body too!” Pepper continues, not having paid enough attention to hear me, apparently. I can’t blame her. “Why did this happen? You are sure you only meant to change my eyes, right?” She tears her gaze off of herself and onto me.

“Well, yeah, of course!” I reply while standing up.

She tilts her head, intensely staring at me. “Uh…”

“What? Do I look different or something?” I take a glance a myself, but no, I did turn myself fully back into my human form...

She squeezes my plushie (I almost forgot it was there). “Cherry, are… Are you speaking right now?”

My eyes go wide. “Inferno. Inferno inferno inferno!! You can’t hear me!?” She brings her hand to her mouth in shock.

“I cannot hear you!” she replies. She glances around me, then herself. “Where did the connection go?”

“Wait, what?” She’s right. There’s no strand of magic coming out of me and towards her anymore. We’re… finally separate.

“But that makes no sense, why would fulfilling a pact remove our connection?” she thinks aloud.

We aren’t given much time to think as a commotion happens outside - a gallop coming to a sudden stop, followed by a horse’s neigh and confused shouts coming from the royal guards’ camp. The front door slams open, and someone runs up the stairs in a hurry.

“PEPPER!” Ashen shouts, panting. “YOU HAVE TO GO!”


	20. Another Perspective - Ashen

_ “Ashen, I can tell you how the king will react. The moment you tell him I’ve been apprehended, he will immediately send the order to bring me back for an execution as soon as possible. You will not even be able to put a word in before he will dismiss you onto another task.” _

Those were the words ringing into the knight’s ears as her horse galloped straight for the capital. She had rode overnight to arrive at noon the next day, and she was determined to prove her friend’s paranoia to be misguided.

The heroine stepped on solid ground at the palace’s stables - no one had stopped her on her way in, courtesy of her status as a royal knight. She ran to the throne room, her helmet rattling in her arm with every wide step.

“I request an audience with the King!” She shouted as she opened the ornate double doors and walked swiftly towards the throne, bypassing a concerned looking servant in charge of the King’s agenda.

The regal master in question perked up, straightening from slouching on his armrest. “Why, hello there, Ashen. What news do you bring Us?”

“My liege,” she started, bowing down on one knee, “professor… I mean, the warlock fugitive is in custody.”

“Good, good,” The King started, standing up. “Let’s pay him a visit then, shall we? Which cell did you put him in?”

She shook her head, confounding herself in excuses. “My liege, they are under house arrest right now, but I promise to bring them back whenever I can!”

The man’s face turned sour. “You didn’t bring him here!?”

“That’s why I’m here!” She placed her palm on her chest. “The situation is complicated, I am doing as best I can and-“

The King stopped her with a wave of the hand. “Advisor, send a messenger with the order for all royal guards still on site to apprehend the warlock.” The man in question nodded, checking in his notes who was currently available.

Her blood ran cold, and Pepper’s words came back, taunting her again. “Wait, wait, wait! Just let me explain, there are people in danger and they’re the only one that can-“

He interrupted her once more, “Was your mission to bring the criminal back here or to concern yourself with some hostages?”

Her train of thought suddenly crashed. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Sir, it is my duty as a knight to protect our people!” she argued.

“YOUR DUTY IS TO DO AS YOU’RE ORDERED!” the King screamed. He sat back down, shaking his head. “You might be our best knight Ashen, but I should’ve known. This whole affair is too personal for you and you’re letting your sentiments swerve you off path.”

“My liege, I’m just trying to save lives!”

“And I salute your heroism. Ashen, you are dismissed from this affair. We’ve heard some rumors about a group of peasants refusing to pay their taxes in Hohenbourg, you will head there tomorrow morning.” He relaxed into his throne. “Am I clear?”

All had gone exactly as Pepper had predicted.

Ashen was too hurt and horrified to laugh at the irony, though.

“As… you wish, my liege.” she replied shakily.

“Very well. Dismissed. Go enjoy your afternoon.” As she turned to leave, he turned to his advisor, already done caring for her presence. Picking up the list of suitable candidates for the mission, he spoke. “Tell Leon to fetch his horse. He leaves tonight with a message to declare.”

They couldn’t put Leon on the case! That man was violent, coarse and malevolent! He only cared to hurt people for his own amusement, and… ! The heroine suddenly understood Pepper’s interest in fighting the establishment. Leon was a royal guard like herself.

How could she have been so blind? How did she ever think that a system that put people such as Leon in positions of power was benevolent in its intentions?

The moment she was out the throne room and the door closed behind her, she ran to the stables.

She would have to ride over night to arrive in the afternoon the next day, before Leon would.


	21. Last respite

“So if I understood correctly,” Pepper starts after hearing Ashen’s lengthy explanations, “we have only mere hours left before I get sent to prison, you get executed on the spot for treachery, and Cherry spends the rest of her life as a stranded magic ghost.”

The knight’s already meek demeanor crumbles some more as she awkwardly rubs the back of her neck.

“And on top of that, Cherry is functionally mute for the time being.”

I nod, annoyed.

Pepper slowly inhales, then lets out a heavy sigh. “I will get started on the time portal. Ashen, please tell the guards to comb the swamp one last time for any remaining animal.”

“Aye aye.” The knight gives us a tentative thumbs up, then paces down the stairs.

Pepper takes a few stacks of paper and a dozen or so pencils, then climbs up a stair to her workshop. I trail behind.

The room is about as messy as last I visited it, with the addition of the soldier statuettes neatly stacked to the side, each still dimly glowing with the soul they contain.

Pepper sits down, crossing her legs, then starts furiously covering her paper pages with writing, quickly throwing a glance at her hastily drawn chalk pattern on the floor every once in a while. “Can you do a headcount, please?” she asks me, quickly pointing at the wooden effigies.

I silently get to work, not that Pepper would hear me even if I had anything interesting to say. I pick up the first statuette, then a second, so on and so forth, mentally keeping track as I start a new pile out of the ones I’ve already counted. The only sound in the room is that of Pepper’s frenetic scribing.

At the twenty fifth statuette, I slow down. I remember this one well, it’s the first one we had saved. I look at the two piles forlornly. I’m grateful we’re on our way to restore so many victims, but my mind can’t help but wander to the ones that we didn’t have the time for.

“We have done what we could, Cherry.” I turn my head around and see that Pepper was glancing towards me. “That is more than enough. The results cannot always be perfect. It does matter that we did the right thing, and it does matter what we did manage to accomplish, even if it is incomplete.”

“I guess, it’s just…” I don’t really know how to finish this sentence. I reply with a thumbs-up and a smile and I hope it is enough to drop the conversation, then get back to my task.

“Cherry?” she calls out. “I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for sticking around and helping a malevolent idiot find a kinder way to live.”

I snort. “I don’t think I had much of a choice in that, stuck as I was. But no problem, I guess.” I can’t help but think back to the old warlock now. Seems that in the end, Pepper’s words of mitigation had gone through. I had become so much less self-conscious about the accidental, yet positive mind scrambling. Not that I’d ever jump at the occasion to do it again, obviously, but I’ve made my peace with ridding the world of the warlock. Plus, meeting Pepper had been pretty fun, even in the middle of the craziness of being one and a half foot tall and made of cotton.

I arrive at a final tally of 154, not counting any last minute finds from Ashen. I stand back up, approach Pepper, and show her one finger, then five, and four.

“One hundred and fifty-four then?” she asks, making sure she caught my number correctly. “That is not bad. That should be about half.”

“The King sent three hundred people after you!?” I ask, incredulous.

Pepper seems to pick up on my question merely from my expression alone. “Well, with troops of about thirty strong each, it racks up quickly.”

I growl, sitting down next to her, while she goes back to her task.

“I still have not thanked you yet for the body either,” she says, going back to our earlier discussion. “So thank you for that as well.”

“You’re welcome again.” It’s hard to think that that too has been an accident, and one as fresh as an hour ago, and yet I have to admit it isn’t on my mind anymore. Maybe the situation is that dire, or maybe, now that the bandage is ripped off, the negative feelings surrounding transformation have gone away too, like removing a cast and realising your limb has healed better than you expected. “Say, why did it happen anyway? I really only meant to change your eyes.”

Pepper looks at me flatly. Oh. I make a swirling movement with my hand, point to her eyes, then gesture at her body in general with a whelmed expression. She squints for a moment, but does seem to put my question together. “I am still thinking through that specific mystery. There are so many elements to take into account. Fact of the matter is, you went to accomplish our pact, when you touched me with intent, energy poured out of you, and when it was over, I was fully female and our connection was cut.“ She closes her eyes and thinks. “My current train of thought is the energy was stored to accomplish the old pact from your ancestor, was accidentally used on our new one for some reason, and… Well, who knows what variables your being-made-of-magic situation introduced to the table. Maybe our connection was not quite what we thought?” Her eyes open again, she reaches for my plushie and squeezes it in her arms. Is it helping her think this through maybe? “...I am starting to have a hunch, but it is… bizarre.”

“Heeeey!” We hear from the window. Sounds like Ashen and the guards are back. Our discussion stops there as I go for the stairs and Pepper resumes her work.

It’s a bit of a disappointment to see they have only brought back one soldier, but I can’t exactly blame them, since, coincidentally enough, it’s a white tiger like me. 155 it is then. The animal fights against its restraints fiercely, but in a single touch from me it yelps and transforms into another totem. I hear gasps from the crowd, from their perspective this must’ve looked like a tiger spontaneously turning into a floating wooden statuette, but we can’t really spare the time at this point. Ashen looks at the statuette, then searches for about where my eyes would be, and gives me a nod.

I realise, as I hear the gallop of a horse trudging in swamp water, that our time is up, and I run back to the workshop as quickly as I can, while Ashen readies herself to stall for time.


	22. Ascending Cascade

Once up the stairs, I nervously gesture to Pepper that we need to get going, adding the last statuette to the pile.

“Gods damn me,” she replies, scratching the back of her head. “Alright then. Let us hope I got my calculations right. I will send them back six months ago, that should be more than enough to ensure even those cursed earliest will turn back.”

She grabs a piece of chalk and meticulously reproduces the ritual circle according to a drawing she made on a piece of paper. I look out the window and see Ashen and a man in a shouting match, weapons drawn. The other soldiers seem confused, but they start to separate themselves by their allegiances - a small group seems to stick with Ashen, readying themselves to defend the tower, while the rest move to the opposite side.

When I turn my head back towards Pepper, she’s looking at the newest addition to the totem pile with an inscrutable expression. She grabs it, then goes to pick up a few bottles off her shelves. She opens them up and carefully pours their content out on the floor according to the chalk. I see her hesitate for a second.

“What’s taking so long?” I ask, before approaching her and placing myself next to her. She looks up at my worried expression with one that matches it.

“No, six months will not work. They would just be stranded in a swamp without food nor clean water. I need to send them back to a time before these plains became a bog.” She looks down at the circle. With one wave of the end, she erases a glyph and replaces it with another one, then matches it with one of the liquids from her bottles. She then silently finishes filling up the circle, before dusting off her hands. “Get to the statuettes. We will need to chuck them in fast, the portal will not be open for long.” I reluctantly oblige. I hear through the window that the standoff has turned into a full-on battle.

Pepper takes a step back, focusing her magic. Wispy green strands come out of her hands, which she looks at with curiosity before refocusing herself to the task. They swirl in the air in front of her, faster and faster. I can feel the floor of the old tower groan in disapproval, papers start flying through the room, soaring straight for the magic as it starts to suck in air.

And then a flash of light. Right in front of Pepper appears a gate, if I can call it that. Some sort of floating hole, sucking air and loose material in. There is a flow of energy inside that runs upwards, like an upside down waterfall.

I shake my head and lift a dozen statuettes in my hand. I go to chuck them in the stream and get surprised - they pass through perfectly fine, but the moment I try to put my hand in, it’s like a glass pane. I touch and prod the portal confusedly. Next to me, Pepper throws another set of statuettes and I can clearly see her hand pass through that invisible barrier that seems to only stop me.

I don’t have the time to think about this. We continue the menial task in silence. I put a statuette on the other side, then look at it get thrown upwards by the energy flow. Keeping my eyes on it for a second, I see the statuette shift from wood back into an animal, then the animal turning back into a human. The person blinks and holds their head in pain, then they get too far for me to continue seeing them from the opening. At the very least, this is working exactly as intended. We’re… actually saving them. I can’t believe it.

A minute later, our work is done, save for the last totem in Pepper’s hands. The portal still hums ominously.

“What an adventure that has been…” I mutter to myself. I turn my head towards Pepper, she does the same.

“I hope they will forgive me for displacing them from this era.” She looks at the last statuette in her hand forlornly, then throws it in. We both follow it with our eyes, as it turns into a white tiger, then a woman, who seems to be unconscious… My eyes go wide. She still has the animal’s ears and tail. 

“What…?” I look at her as she disappears up and away into the stream. I add it to the list of mysteries I’ll never get the answer to.

Pepper looks uncomfortable. She tightens her arms reflexively, before glancing down. “Where is plushie Cherry?”

I shrug, then points towards the stairs. “Maybe you left it in the workshop?”

She runs downstairs.

I take a moment to look through the window. There are but a few soldiers left standing, including Ashen. But… she looks severely wounded. She slumps against the building, breathing heavily. It seemed to have been a game of numbers in the end, and too many had stood with the King’s order. I grimace. We can’t have much time left, if any.

Pepper comes back up, still empty-handed and crying.

I’d never seen her cry before.

Was the plushie this important to her? Of course it must’ve been, with the ways I messed with her brain.

She walks up to me and hugs me tight, sobbing. I reciprocate, gently stroking her back. I nudge her away from the window before she gets a glance at Ashen’s nearing final fate.

“So I guess that’s how it is…” I tell her, even if I know it’s fruitless. “I can’t see a happy ending, but at least we saved as many people as we could.”

“Cherry…” She mutters.

I turn my head down towards her. “Yes?”

She shifts in my arms, her hug getting even tighter. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I guess since I’m made of magic I’m immortal now or something. At least I hope so.” I contemplate my possible future, stroking her hair absently. “Could be worse.”

“I think I understand what happened to our connection.” She mutters, nudging her head in my arm.

I perk up. “Hmm?”

She looks up at me with big, round and watery eyes. “In case this is goodbye, I want you to know you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

I grimace. “Don’t talk about goodbyes. We still have a whole trip to the capital’s worth of time together, don’t we?”

She glances at the time portal. “I will be back. I promise.”

She’s not thinking of going in there, is she? “Pepper, that’s a bad idea, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I can’t follow you in there…”

She shakes her head sadly. “I noticed. Why do you think I know I am going in there alone?”

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Wait, you can hear me again!?”

She giggles, pulls herself out of the hug and removes her hat. Her ears are pointy and long. “Courtesy of your cuddle just now.” She smirks, her two cheeks still lined with tears. “Cuddle… Maybe that is the name I should give to your plushie when I find her again.”

“Pepper…” I try to articulate something, but I just don’t find the words. I try to ignore the hum of the portal and keep my ears open to any noise from downstairs, and the silence worries me.

“My appearance is all courtesy of magic, is it not?” She sighs. “Let us hope the travel to the past will not wash away my new identity, at least.”

Oh gods, it would work like that wouldn’t it? My head swivels back in her direction. “What!? No! Pepper, you can’t take that risk! What if your mind also reverts back to the warlock!?”

“If it does, and that is if… Maybe he will have learned a thing or two. Maybe he will want to be me again, who knows? And even if it does not work out, now you know you just need to change someone’s eyes and ears to be perceived again. You will not ever be alone. You do not have to worry.” She turns towards the portal. “Plus… Considering a few clues, I have a feeling this  _ will _ work out.”

I hear the door downstairs getting smashed open.

“See you soon, Cherry. I will miss you.” Pepper tells me, giving me a last embrace before jumping into the stream. I try to grab her before she passes through the portal, but it’s too late, and my face bumps against it. I look up at Pepper. She looks extremely uncomfortable as I see her clothes and her self slowly revert all the changes of the past week, yet she can’t help but throw me a hopeful look, even as her appearance shifts back to that of the monster that started this all.

“No…” The words get stuck in my throat. “No!”

I see her clutching her head and I fear the worst. When they look back at me, I see the same expressionless snark I had hoped to never encounter again. The last thing he does before leaving my line of sight is throw me a glare.

“NOOOO!” I pound my fists against the portal. “Give me my friend back!” I punch, and punch again in frustration. “Gods, familiars, fairies, whatever else is out there, as long as you do something! Bring her back!!”

I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. 

I slump to my knees. Turning my head reveals a man with neatly cut forest green hair cautiously approaching the portal. I take a guess that he’s the Leon Ashen warned us about.

“Is that a time portal?” The man mutters to himself, before uttering out a malicious sounding laugh. “Oh, Ashen, betrayed again by a man you love.”

I shakily get back on my feet. Even if he hadn’t misunderstood the situation, the mere fact that he found the suffering of someone else something to mock makes me see red. I growl and pounce on him, feeling my body shift into a tiger in mid-air, and he grunts when I enter him.

We wrestle against one another for the control of the body. At this point, I’m just rolling with the punches when it comes to the weirdness of being made of magic. I’m not sure he understands what’s happening and at this point I don’t care. I push and lash out against his will, just enough to direct us to the time portal.

Using his hand, I push my own through the barrier preventing me from getting through…

And he gets immediately blasted backwards, while I remain stuck in the stream. The energy flows through me and explodes, with me at its epicenter.

With a deafening growl, I can feel the world shift around me. The ricketiness of the tower disappears as it redresses itself, the weight of decades of neglect fading away. The warlock’s numerous magical apparatus vanish, replaced by a delicate rug, two comfy chairs, a low table and a recently used tea set on it, still faintly smelling of leaves. 

Leon, caught in the blast, dissipates altogether, soon followed by his armor. 

It is as if I can feel the edges of the shock wave as they grow to encompass the whole swamp, the whole region, the whole country, soon, the planet, and finally, the universe - time itself shifting around me, change pouring out from my body.

I get thrown back against the wall. It hurts. I hold a hand against the back of my head in pain.

I take a few minutes to calm down from what just happened. The portal is gone. I lift myself back to my feet and look out the window, only to be faced with a sprawling, clean and colorful city. People down in the street go about their business as if nothing had just happened. I guess that to them, it did.

I turn back around to the room surrounding me. Everything is cleaner and well maintained. The rug feels nice under my paw pads. I pause, and look at myself. I’m physical again! No more transparency, no more blueishness. I shift myself back to human, then back to humanoid feline - I’m naked and I don’t know if the wardrobe is still upstairs.

Just as I feel melancholy start creeping into my thoughts, I hear a loud crack in front of me. I see Pepper - yes, Pepper, not the warlock - heading out of a new portal. She looks two years older, and is holding my plushie - more beaten up, more repaired, more loved. “Told you I would come back, did I not?”

I run towards her and tackle her into a hug. “I thought you’d died! I thought the warlock was back!!”

She sighs in a way that tells me she is more tired than she is letting on. “Need I remind you the warlock never died? I am him. He is me. Why would I not have wanted to be back to my best self?”

I exhale a gigantic breath as relief washes over me. We continue to hug for a few more moments, before I give her some space. “How long were you stuck in the past?”

“Oh, hmm…” She thinks for a second. “Eighteen months, give or take. We had a calendar but keeping track of days is not my forte. First I had to clear my name to the victims I made time travel, then we had to set up the town to grow - that was rather easy with technological knowledge brought three hundred years earlier - and finally, it took me a bit more time to gather the ingredients to open a new portal.” She glances around the room, and spotting the chairs, sits in one of them to rest her legs. “Amelia and Devei asked me to give you their greetings, by the way.”

I tilt my head to the side, these names ringing no bell to me. “I’m sorry, who?”

She seems confused for a moment, before she realizes she skipped an explanatory step. “Amelia is the white tiger woman, and Devei was my familiar in the past. Also they are your ancestors.”

Gears creak and rattle in my brain. I blink a few times. “Wait- wait- wait… So… The ancestral witch I turned you into… was yourself?”

Pepper just heartily laughs, before falling asleep there and then. 

I sigh and sit down, joining her in resting from the tumultuous events of the day. "I am going to need so many explanations," I mutter to myself before dozing off.


	23. Epilogue

After accidentally taking a whole night’s rest, we set out into the town in the morning, starting by the foot of the tower. The plaza we’re apparently in is bustling with activity. Swiping my eyes over our surrounding, I notice many non-human beings around amongst the crowds, which seems odd, considering the awful, supremacist approach of the royal family. Are they here clandestinely? Surprisingly, Pepper is the most disoriented of us both.

“So much has changed in three hundred years…” She mutters, looking around and hugging my plush effigy.

“I dunno, I stayed right where I was and I don’t feel like I know this place any better.” I reply dryly.

My friend giggles. “I think we both had enough time shenanigans for a lifetime.”

Walking further, we stumble upon a large notice board covered in posters and smaller, loose pieces of paper. I still don’t know how to read obviously, so I rely on Pepper to sleuth its purpose.

She leans forward in curiosity as she reads. “Oh, how interesting! Looks like this is a list of all the jobs required around the town. Some small, some big. I do not see any rewards listed...”

Another interrogation comes to my thoughts. “Why write it all down? Do they really think that many people can read?”

We approach the person that seems to be in charge.

“Oh, hey Pepper, hey Cherry! What will it be today?” the stranger greets, to our confusion.

We exchange a glance before hightailing it and retreating to the tower.

“That was weird, right?” I ask Pepper, while panting to regain my breath.

“By which infernal rules does time travel work!?” Pepper shouts, visibly frustrated. “Urgh. Did they mistake us for the us from this timeline? Are we at risk of encountering our doppelgangers?”

“I hadn’t even thought about it…” We sit down at the kitchen table. I look around and take note of the much more decorated and less rickety-looking cupboards the room is equipped with this time around. Instead of a bronze pot over a flame, there is a strange metal box with a small door on the front. I eye it curiously. “What’s this?”

Pepper shrugs. “No idea.”

A yawn and the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs makes me turn my head around. I see a certain carrot-topped knight wearing pajamas making her way towards Pepper. “Morning sweetheart,” Ashen says while planting a quick kiss on the witch’s cheek, prompting her to grow red as a tomato. “Yesterday’s experiment go okay?”

“sdfdsfsngfgdfd,” Pepper eloquently replies, squeezing my plushie so hard it threatens to make its head pop off.

Ashen self-satisfiedly giggles, before turning her head in my direction. “Hey Cherry, taking breakfast with us today?”

“Uh… Sure!” I say, faking a smile.

Ashen raises an eyebrow, but eventually heads for the metal box. “Were you girls waiting for me? You could’ve at least turned on the stove.” Opening the trap door on the front, she snaps her fingers and produces magical fire, which she then sets inside the box’s chamber before closing the door. She goes to sit next to Pepper who still hasn’t recovered.

I awkwardly tap my fingers on the table, my gaze unable to focus anywhere.

Ashen finally breaks the silence. “Okay, what’s going on? You two have guilty written all over your faces. Did you make something explode?”

“Oh, where to start…” Pepper mutters, finally back from her trip to cloud nine. “I narrowly escaped a death sentence by travelling three hundred years to the past and completely changing the course of History?”

The knight blinks a few times in confusion, then explodes into roracious laughter. “You’ve taught me to expect chaos with you sweetheart, but that’s on another level altogether! Alright, what exactly did you change?”

Pepper glanced away. “I might have caused the creation of this entire town for one...”

Ashen frowned. “If that’s the case, oh gods I do not want to know what world you come from. Without this city the royal family still wouldn’t be toppled for one.”

Pepper gawked straight at Ashen.

A lengthy explanation later, everybody in the room was on about the same page. Turns out the kingdom had been replaced with free, independant communes connected by a wide web of trading routes. 

In this timeline apparently, my family are travelling traders instead of farmers, but when my familiar powers manifested at twelve while we were crossing this town, we settled down for a few years as I needed to stay under the care of Pepper, who in this world is a savant in magic, as well as a well loved doctor around the town.

When I was old enough to not need the nearby presence of my family, my mom and sis took to the roads again with the promise to come pass by again every six months, which they have yet to break.

Pepper on her end, unlike our world where her gender had been changed by magical interference, she had held in her heart the desire to turn into a woman from the moment of her birth. That’s what had pushed her into magical studies, and why she met Ashen at the ancestral magical school of Oxward, known for its excellent courses on transmutation. They’d moved in this town just a year before meeting me.

And apparently, I’ve struck a deal with Pepper as her familiar, and she has been teaching me how to read for the past two years in exchange for a companionship that “truly understands how her mind works” (Ashen assured us she was quoting the terms of the pact Pepper came up with on that).

Meanwhile, Ashen got to hear of our tale of the old timeline, and we both got the abridged version of Pepper’s misadventure in the past. 

She had indeed reverted into the warlock, but in a turn of fate, that only meant she no longer had her magically propped up empathy, but she had retained the lessons her time with me had taught her. She fumbled her words a lot at first, often having to rely on asking herself what she would’ve done and how she would’ve said it had she still been her better self. 

She befriended Amelia, my human ancestor, over teaching her to get over the permanent consequences that staying under the warlock’s curse for so long had given her (“You know, the ears, the tail, and, uh… something else,” Pepper had unsubtly said).

Along with the other time travelers they set to improving the town from a doomed hamlet to a technologically advanced, sprawling farming community.

Then, Pepper summoned my other ancestor, the familiar one, Devei. Their pact was a complicated mess of intentionally not finishing the deal so it could get lodged into my ancestral memory. And, of course, the element they had left open was turning her body female. That’s why, when I’d changed her eyes, her body changed as well and our connection closed off - that connection’s existence was thanks to the old pact. I would never have been able to penetrate her soul in the first place without the combination of both that open pact and my accidental transformation into pure magic.

Obviously, Amelia and Devei got together, or I wouldn’t exist as I do. From there, it was only a matter of Pepper collecting the ingredients she needed to open a new time portal, and she found herself into this new and improved present time.

“So in this other world, we’d barely met and weren’t together yet?” Ashen asks Pepper at the end of her explanations.

“Yes?” she replies. “I am surprised this is the element you are focusing on out of this whole story.”

Standing up suddenly, Ashen lifts Pepper out of her chair and brings her into a deep and long kiss. She smugly smiles as the witch melts into her embrace once more. “Consider that our new first kiss then, sweetheart.”

“Gfdngfgnfnd,” Pepper attempts to retort, twisting the plushie in a new shape again.

Ashen lets her sit back down, then goes to prepare breakfast, filling a pan with milk and putting it on top of the stove.

“Most importantly, the fact that here, my magical gender change came from natural causes instead of never happening, as would have been a more direct fix, tells me there is a conscious will behind the way time repairs itself after paradoxes.” Pepper looks up at the ceiling - no, beyond it, even. “I wonder which of the gods we owe this adventure to…”

My reply is much more pragmatic. “Well, I, myself, am glad it’s over. I’ll take not having to worry about the draft and not living in a rubbish cottage in nowhere-village, thanks. How’s the breakfast coming along, Ashen?”

“I think you girls will like what I’m cooking up,” Pepper’s spouse replies with a smile, adding a sweet smelling brown powder to the milk.

#  **_Elsewhere, elsewhen…_ **

There was a room somewhere in the middle of a sprawling unknown. A plaque affixed on the door read “Bureau of the Mad God, God of Madness, Rehabilitator of Evil Souls, Guardian of Gender Crossers, His Friends May Call Him Mad King, He/Him”.

From this room came a booming laugh.

In front of a crystal ball sat two men. Tytan, god of familiars, was a hulking individual, with skin the color of magma and two large ram horns on his head. His stance wide and his arms crossed, he was the source of the ear shattering rumble.

Next to him, the Mad God, as was his name, looked worn and tired, his chair wobbling along with him.

Tytan’s laugh finally came to an end. He nudged his colleague on the shoulder. “Not so easy graduating from competently meddling mortal to god, is it?” 

“I didn’t think she’d go for time travel…” The Mad God slurred out, his head almost touching the ground as the backrest of his chair bent like putty under his weight. “Why did it even cross her mind?”

“Yeah, when we gods mess up the universe has a way of putting that idea in the mortals’ brains.” Tytan offered a wide smile. “Don’t worry, every deity creates a time paradox or two when starting out. I guess not even someone as clever as you could avoid it!” 

“I… I don’t think I’m cut out for punishing evildoers. I’ll stick to helping those that start off in need of a new body in the first place.” On the plaque at the door, the words ‘Rehabilitator of Evil Souls’ crossed themselves out, before disappearing altogether. The rest of the letters shifted to make the newly opened space disappear. “Plus, I still need to help them adapt to the new timeline they created… Urgh, I’ll just… make them experience moments of their new past during their dreams over the next week or something.”

Tytan chuckled. “Not exactly subtle… Still, I can’t say the way you found to make things sort themselves out was half bad. You’re certainly talented when you’re not exhausted to the end of your wits. You’ll get the hang of it in no time, I’m sure.” He grabbed the ball, which slowly dimmed in his hand until it turned back into marble. He stood up. “Come on, let’s go show Alicinee. She loves hearing about the troubles of the new deities almost half as much as me.”

The Mad God rubbed his hands on his face. “Yeah, just… give me five seconds first. Go ahead, I’ll join back with you.”

“Sure! Take your time, Mad God.” Tytan started bouncing the ball in his hand. “You still did good today, newbie. Even if it wasn’t the smoothest of rides.” He opened the door, heading towards Alicinee’s cantina.

The Mad God let out the slightest of smiles, before sighing deeply and straightening himself up. He stretched, counted five seconds, then followed Tytan not too far behind.


End file.
